


Alley-Cat Quartermaster

by Only_1_Truth



Category: Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone has their coping mechanisms, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Skyfall, Q is a Holmes, Sexual Content, Sick Character, Slight torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:44:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4354781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This all started with a conversation with my Queen of Plotbunnies and Paladin of Writer's-Block Slaying, MinMu: So many fics include Bond breaking into Q's flat.  What if it was the other way around?  </p><p>Summary: After the death of M, everything is in shambles.  MI6 is trying to stay afloat and not let its enemies scent blood in the water; the new Quartermaster is orchestrating a flurry of activity to keep his branch at pique efficiency and therefore his agents alive; 007, the agent hit hardest by the death of the old M, is going through the motions and throwing himself into his work.  </p><p>Everyone is a little bit broken, and a lot exhausted.  </p><p>So when Bond and Q end up together in unexpected circumstances, perhaps the outcome should not be so unexpected...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Titan Has Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MinMu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinMu/gifts).



> Upon the finishing of this fic, I received an un-looked-for gift: Chestnut_NOLA sent me the banner that you can see below! She's an individual of many tallents, all of them growing unceasingly, it seems! ^_^ I'm unendingly glad that she sees my fics as worth her time to make such lovely art for. Enjoy! And check out her fics!

After the Silva Incident and the loss of M, MI6 was in shambles.  There was only so much that Tanner and Mallory could do, even with Moneypenny running interference.  A titan had fallen, and it was impossible to tell if MI6 would survive her loss.

The new Quartermaster was instrumental in the continued survival of Her Majesty’s secret service. Ever since Silva had outsmarted him, Q had gone on to prove just what a clever boy he was, as well as tough-as-nails when everything more or less went insane.  Everyone else could mourn or go nuts when M died and was replaced, but Q-branch wasn’t having any of it.  Through example and sometimes brute force, Q kept his division moving when it wanted to devolve into chaos like everything else.

The next dose of salvation came when 007 finally returned to the ranks.  Everyone – even Mallory, who didn’t know 007 by anything except his records – had expected Bond to stay in the wind for at least a month, mourning in his own destructive, reclusive way.  Q made some efforts to find him, but he already had his hands full, and 00-agents were good at disappearing – 007 the best.  No one from the old regime could bring themselves to be mad at the agent, because they knew that he’d lost more than a superior: he’d lost a friend, an anchor, a rare source of outside control in his life.

Arguably, Bond’s loyalty was to M first, and Queen and Country second. 

Fortunately, regardless of whether or not that was true, Bond’s loyalty to MI6 itself was strong enough that he came in from the cold in a little under two weeks. He’d looked as rough as a week-long bender or something the cat had dragged in, and no one asked what he’d been doing, but 007 cleaned up fast and got back to his job faster. It was at that point that the other 00-agents fell into line belatedly behind Mallory, who’d been on the verge of court-martialing or shooting a few of them just to maintain order.

It was evident that MI6 needed all of its heavy-hitters in the wake of M’s passing, and even with Tanner, Eve, Mallory, Bond, and the new Q, the road to recovery wasn’t an easy one. Then again, since it felt as if the heart of MI6 had been ripped out, maybe it was a miracle that the organization hadn’t collapsed altogether. 

Missions were hard and frequent.  Other countries smelled blood in the water and reacted accordingly.  Bond had at least curtailed some of the possible damage by taking Silva and M out into the middle of bloody nowhere, so M’s death wasn’t as public as it could have been, although everyone knew that 007 had hoped that she wouldn’t have died at all.  Q had done more, destroying or slowing the spread of electronic information, so there were quite a few enemy organizations who still didn’t realize that MI6 had gone through a change in leadership.  If anyone had thought Q too young and green for the job before, they had started to respect him now, as he methodically ripped his way through cyberspace.  What Bond and the other agents were doing physically – eliminating threats, erasing back-trails – the Quartermaster did on a technological level. His effectiveness was nothing short of scary. 

It was a sign of just how hectic things were that Q didn’t even have time to lecture 007 for all of the tech he destroyed.  Sometimes, of course, he’d ‘forget’ to buy him a first-class ticket home in retaliation, but mostly everyone was just tired and trying to do their job without either collapsing from exhaustion or getting shot.  If Q and Bond snarked extra viciously at one another over the comms, everyone else overlooked it as a necessary outlet for some very real tension and frustration. 

When missions were over – on the rare occasion that he wasn’t sent immediately into another one – 007 shed his professionalism and embraced the only coping mechanisms that worked. He drank until he was numb and then he fucked until he could feel again.  007 virtually never went home, but wherever he ended up, he was never alone. Considering what he could have been doing (fighting in bars, driving at senselessly reckless speeds), rampant sex and borderline alcoholism weren’t too bad.  Bond threatened to shoot anyone who had a differing opinion.

Q’s coping mechanisms were much less well-known, but he had them, too. 

~^~

Bond groaned as he finally made it into his flat – his actual flat, not some random woman’s flat or an anonymous hotel room, or even one of his decoy flats that he had spread around the city. He’d actually meant to end up at one of those, but driving with his alcohol content after roughing up more than half a pub made getting to one’s destination haphazard at best. Bond was still aware of his directions and where he was going, but it was harder to really care when he had a bloody nose still dripping down into his mouth whenever he grimaced.

Considering what a bad night he’d had – and what a bad mission he’d had before that – maybe it was best that he was in his main flat.  This place was built to take a bit of a beating from a bellicose agent coming down from a lethal, killing high.

It took a few fumbles for 007 to find the light switch, but when he placed his hand on it, he froze, not turning it on because his instincts were suddenly pinging. He immediately stopped swearing under his breath, too, and snapped his eyes through the darkness around him to try and find out what had caught his attention.  It took but a second to realize that there was a blush of a lamp on in the adjoining room, which Bond _knew_ he hadn’t left on. 

The flat was actually built more like a loft, with a rather small foyer opening up into a broad, high-ceiling living room two steps up (although it hadn’t been tested, Bond knew that the foyer would be a convenient kill-box if he were in the living room and an intruder foolishly got in the door).  The kitchen was off to the left, partially walled off, and done in the same dark mahogany wood that made blood disappear like magic. 007 had actually had opportunity to test that fact on several occasions. 

‘ _And now I’ll get to test it once more_ ,’ he noted mentally, taking a cautious, slow breath through his mouth because his nose still hurt like blazes. Reaching for the weapon he always carried beneath his jacket (a leather jacket today, because thankfully he hadn’t been dressed in anything expensive, aware that his temperament would lead him into trouble), Bond rocked forward onto the pads of his feet, soundlessly stepping forward.  Bond could walk through his house in complete darkness, despite how rarely he was there, but right now his mind was fumbling with the conundrum of how anyone else had gotten in when the security system hadn’t been tripped and the windows were locked. Besides that, the place was four stories up, and this entire top floor was his. 

The lamp that was on sat next to the sofa, which in turn faced away from the door. That was all Bond could see that was out of place, and he circled along the edge of the room so that the blush of yellow light didn’t touch him – he’d been lured in like this on missions before, when he’d been younger and more foolish.  Until 007 could see who had turned on the light, he sure as hell wasn’t stepping into it.

Bond lowered his gun slightly when he saw something else he hadn’t expected, which was a shape curled up under a blanket on his sofa.  Argyle socks stuck out one end, and Bond felt that he should recognize the mass of dark curls peaking out the other, but either he’d taken too many blows to the head recently, or his brain was just rebelling, because he couldn’t make sense of it.  Regardless, he was pretty sure that he could handle this threat, so he stepped closer until he could nudge one foot with the muzzle of his gun.  With his other hand, he reached up swiftly to grab the protruding angle of a shoulder.  “I don’t know how you got in,” he said in his lowest and most threatening voice, “but you’re going to answer a few questions before you get out again, and they’re not going to be pleasant.”

Unsurprisingly, 007’s voice woke up his unexpected visitor – the surprise came when the visitor twisted sluggishly and turned his head, and Bond found himself looking at his fresh-faced young Quartermaster.

Bond had been gripping his shoulder to keep him pinned down in case there was trouble, but now he backed off, gun pointed wide even though no 00-agent would misfire. “ _Q_?”

“007,” said the Quartermaster in his perfectly clipped accents, with only the edge of sleepiness clinging to them like static as he sat up.  He looked almost like an alien to Bond without his glasses, but fortunately the Quartermaster reached behind him to the arm of the sofa and grabbed his spectacles.  “How unexpectedly punctual of you.  Usually you’re about the town for days after a mission like that.”

“Unless I’m sent on another one,” 007 amended reflexively, before remembering what a ridiculous situation he was in.  “Q, how the _hell_ did you get into my flat?” 

“Well…” Q was dressed as he always was: a button-down and a tie beneath an offensively patterned cardigan; Bond could only assume that he was still wearing his slacks beneath the blanket now pooled around his waist.  “Your security is laughably pathetic.”

“It’s top-notch.”

“Let me rephrase,” Q said delicately with a dry little smile, looking perfectly himself again now that his glasses were on, “Your security system, no matter how good, was horribly outmatched by me.  Don’t let your ego take it too hard.”

Bond snorted harshly, and belatedly realized that he hadn’t re-holstered his gun.  Generally, that was considered rude, but 007 was known for rudeness as much as he was known for being suave.  Plus, his nose still hurt, along with a few other bruises. “Let _me_  rephrase: why the fuck have you broken into my flat?” 

For a moment, Q was silent. Slim and not particularly intimidating in any way, he clearly considered his words, taking in the handgun at Bond’s side but only raising an eyebrow in response.  Q had always had the peculiar ability, now that 007 thought about it, to take agents at their worst and keep his cool.  At the moment, it made Bond wonder if Q was messed up in the head. Slowly, Q stood up, disentangling himself from the blanket and proving that he was dressed exactly as he would have been at Q-branch (except for shoes) as he now wandered past 007 and towards the kitchen.  “As it so happens, 007, your kitchen and liquor cabinet are significantly better stocked than mine. Besides that, your flat is equipped to withstand a level three hurricane, so I figured that one Quartermaster could hardly hurt it.”

Still a bit to bewildered by the sight of his Quartermaster walking around his flat, it took a moment for 007’s training to reboot and kick in again. Then he began to notice things like the spy he was: the way Q walked with easy familiarity, which only came from being in a place regularly.  That was more disturbing than Bond wanted to admit, but he’d picked up something else in Q’s voice, too, enough for him to feel his way through the conversation. Carefully, he asked as he turned to keep Q in his range of vision, “And just how much of my well-stocked liquor cabinet have you liberated?”

Q laughed from the kitchen even as he got himself a glass and flicked on the overhead light. “Oh, don’t worry, 007. I’m actually not much of a drinker, no matter how hard the day may be.”

“And how hard was it?” 007 began to tentatively put together the pieces.  He put away his gun as he thought he started to understand the situation, or at least suspect some of Q’s motives for crashing here.

Pausing in the process of pouring just the smallest splash of scotch, Q froze, and Bond finally saw beneath the carefully placed mask that Q probably wore all the time. Beneath it were all sorts of cracks, each filled with tension and the kind of painful, adrenaline-like energy 007 was all too familiar with.  “The Brimstone mission,” was all Q said, voice brittle and flat.

Immediately Bond understood, and some of the irritable tension left his shoulders without him consciously willing it.  “Brimstone,” he repeated more grimly, “Fuck.”  That mission had gone to 003, and although that information was technically all confidential, Bond had known about that particular ongoing nightmare anyway. He was a spy, after all, and 003 was a decent bloke. 

“If nothing else, it’s over now,” Q said before downing 007’s alcohol.  It wasn’t much more than a mouthful, and if 007 was any judge, Q hadn’t had much (if anything) to drink before now, but the Quartermaster nonetheless looked shaky by the time he lowered the glass.  Then again, considering what little Bond knew about the Brimstone mission, Q had every right to be shaky – maybe even the right to be crashing in the bullet-proof home of a 00-agent.  “It went tits-up, unsurprisingly.”

“And 003?” Bond moved forward to pour himself some scotch as well.  It seemed like the proper thing to do.  His leather jacket brushed Q’s shoulder as he reached.

Q stayed put where he was, leaning on the stainless steel countertop and looking off into the middle distance, which made it look as though he were acutely studying the toaster. “He did his best to come home in a casket, but somehow, Medical says he’ll live,” Q muttered before reaching out a hand and snagging 007’s tumbler before the agent could drink what he’d poured. 007 watched, one pale eyebrow slightly raised, as another mouthful went into the Quartermaster. 007 was good at judging people, and particularly good at judging how drunk people were, but now he was definitely sure that Q hadn’t started drinking until he’d arrived - and was eager to amend that.  

Just as Bond was about to ask how long Q had been here and how he knew where everything was in Bond’s flat, Q finally looked over at him and _really_ looked at him.  “What happened to your face?”

Bond tested out an ironic little smirk that made his nose throb, but he stole his glass back and said with wry reproach, “Gosh, Q, nice to see you, too.  Not only do you break into my flat and drink my scotch, but you’ve got such lovely manners doing it.”

“Since when have either of us employed manners when interacting with one another?” Q replied back in kind, even matching Bond’s thin smile somehow.  “I was under the impression that the entirety of our professional relationship was based on mutual snark and a tolerance for bad temper.”

Bond tried not to snort into his drink, because Q was, amusingly, quite right.  007 could be absolutely monstrous when his mood was bad – but then again, so could Q.  The two of them just seemed remarkably capable of withstanding the other when all the claws were out.  “Why are you in my flat, Q?” he asked  again quietly as he drank, loving the way the scotch burned away his aches and pains and replaced them slowly with tingling warmth. He’d drank quite a lot before the fight this evening, but his limit was ridiculously high, and it felt like he’d already burned through everything he’d had before now.  Maybe that was the adrenalin rush from the fight.

This time, instead of avoiding the question with his usual deft wit, Q merely turned and leaned back against the counter.  He sighed. “Damage control.”

“Ah.”

Q’s head turned his way suspiciously.  “That’s all the explanation you need?  Really?” he asked in palpable disbelief.

The agent shrugged and kept drinking.  The glass was almost empty, and he was starting to feel pleasantly drunk again. “I’m a 00-agent. I understand damage control, after-mission crashes, and general violence.”

This time, when Q grabbed his glass – right out of Bond’s hand – the Quartermaster didn’t drink it, but instead moved it away with a little frown in 007’s direction. Q’s hazel eyes flicked over the agent’s features again, clearly growing increasingly aware of the blood. “Did you get mugged on the way home or something?” he finally asked in a carefully unaffected tone, as if commenting on the cut of Bond’s jacket, “I’m afraid Mallory might have to take away your double-oh status if that were the case.”

“Oh, a mugging would have been more interesting,” 007 replied before finally going to the sink to dampen a cloth, noticing belatedly his scraped knuckles as he turned on the tap water. His tone struck somewhere between a low and dangerous growl and an anticipatory cat’s purr as he added, “I’m fairly certain I’d be allowed to kill a mugger if they were stupid enough to jump me.”

The expected lecture about unnecessary homicide didn’t come, a true sign that Q was off his usual track.  Instead, the Quartermaster just made a soft humming noise, and Bond wondered if Q was actually appreciating the idea.  Turning back, Bond looked the other man over and suddenly wondered if he should be worried at the Quartermaster’s bloodthirsty side.  Q just looked mild and normal, though, still out of place against 007’s kitchen counter. 

Abruptly, after a long, painful silence in which Q just looked at nothing for some time, Q pushed off the counter.  “I’m going back to the sofa.  You can kick me out, of course, but there’s an exploding pen in it for you if you don’t.”

What James really wanted was to know how in the world Q had broken in, and how long he’d been doing so to make himself so familiar with the surroundings.  “I can’t make promises about my behavior,” he warned as he tried to find his footing in this new situation, with this new side of his unflappable, professional-to-a-fault Quartermaster.

Q sounded like he was already back on the sofa, blanket shuffling and leather cushions moving. He didn’t appear at all intimidated, “So long as you don’t kill me in my sleep, I think we’ll get along fine. I sleep like the dead, and plan to be back at MI6 doing my job before you even get up tomorrow morning.”

~^~

If nothing else, the same Q that had broken into Bond’s flat so disturbingly was still enough like the Quartermaster Bond was used to that he left the house exactly as he’d promised – the Quartermaster of MI6 was a punctual sort of fellow. He got lost in his work and didn’t leave his branch for days at a time, but if he had an appointment, he made it. By the time Bond rolled groggily out of bed with a ringing headache and all sorts of colorful new bruises, the Quartermaster was gone and the blanket was folded over the back of the leather sofa.  

Bond wasn’t due to check into MI6 anytime soon, and would typically have done nothing but vegetate and try to recover his strength as he waited for another mission to drag him in. This time, though, he cleaned himself up and got dressed to return to MI6 while the day was still young, unhealthily curious to get a look at Q – as if he would be some new sort of creature now that Bond had seen him breaking and entering. 

When 007 entered the hustle and bustle of Q-branch, though, Q was exactly the same as he’d always been. There were no cracks around the edges, no looks of apology or embarrassment or even any sort of look to indicate that he remembered last night at all.  He glanced up at 007, but only to note his entrance.  In fact, the dark-haired young man went back to ordering his minions around until the agent had waded through the controlled chaos right up to him.  “007, I didn’t realize that you were scheduled to break more of my tech for at least another day or so,” Q greeted lightly. 

Bond hadn’t thought that he was scheduled to be confounded by his Quartermaster either, but these last twenty-four hours were clearly full of surprises. “It’s only a matter of time,” he covered his curiosity and questions by acting normal as well, “I figured I’d just preempt it and save myself the commute.”

“How forward-thinking,” Q replied with his attention already straying back to his work, now that he knew the 00-agent didn’t need him.  “Jenna, could you help Gregorson on that facial recognition program? Gregorson, I’d recommend you watch whatever she does, because you should have found 005’s target by now, and I know that my program isn’t at fault.”

Realizing that nothing would be gained by sticking around here and just staring at Q, 007 waited until Q’s back was turned and then snagged a pen and a sticky note. Before slipping out of Q-branch where he wasn’t wanted, Bond detoured and stuck the yellow square of paper on Q’s office door.

‘ _You owe me an exploding pen_ ,’ it said.

~^~

Bond didn’t get an exploding pen, but he got two more missions in swift succession that nearly killed him. Still, he made it back to London, and the first thing he did when he got back into MI6 was ask how things had been in Q-branch.  He got a few confused looks, but no one with a brain questioned a 00-agent, so a few moments later and 007 knew that he wanted to know: Q-branch had been doing an accurate impersonation of a continuous warzone, and had been just about as hellish as Bond’s three weeks out in the field.  They might never have had a gun pointed at them, or a car-chase devolving into a car-crash all around them, but Q-branch was responsible for at least half a dozen agents at any time who were doing just that and more. 

After that, of course, 007 left MI6 and went and laid waste to his favorite bars, but then he skipped the part where he followed a leggy blonde back to her flat and crashed there after blowing her mind once or twice.  Instead – feeling rather clearheaded despite the drinking he’d been doing, curiosity focusing his thoughts without the life-or-death chaos of a mission – 007 returned to his flat.  Not his decoy flats, not a stranger’s home: _his_ flat. 

And he found Q in there again, once more with the security system untouched but clearly bypassed.  This time, Q was throwing punch after punch into the hanging punching bag Bond had in the guestroom-turned-weight-room. 

“You favor your right hand a lot for a left-handed person,” Bond commented as he leaned against the open doorway, just watching.

Q didn’t answer. He had headphones in, but there was no way he couldn’t have seen Bond come in, since they were facing each other. The Quartermaster just kept beating at the punching bag, his taped fists making quick, unforgiving jabs. If asked before now, James would have pegged Q as the entirely un-athletic type, besides what exercise he gained chasing after his minions and running his branch.  However, Q clearly knew what he was doing now, as he threw precise blow after precise blow.  The boffin would never be a powerful figure by any stretch of the imagination, not with a frame better fit for a scarecrow or an alley cat, but he’d been smart enough to wrap his hands and now moved through his paces with as much brutal efficiency as he could muster. 

After watching for a bit longer, 007 decided that Q didn’t need a babysitter, and went back to the kitchen.

It was a bit later that a casually dressed and slightly-panting Q wandered into the kitchen, in a white undershirt sweated through so that it stuck to his flat stomach and chest and grey sweatpants big enough that the bottoms pooled around his feet, making Bond feel positively overdressed in only his dress slacks. His shirt had been removed to avoid getting more blood on it. 

“You know, when Medical patches you up, it’s with the unspoken understanding that you’re not going to undo all of their handiwork,” Q reminded as blandly as butter on toast. His earbuds were out, hanging from his pocket, and despite the atypical choice of clothing, he was totally returned to his aloof, impenetrable self again. 

Bond was perched on the countertop by the sink, peeling away some tape and gauze wrapped around his shoulder. He paused halfway through to give Q a gimlet look before returning to what he was doing.  “And if I have to go back on a mission in the next twenty-four hours, I want to have a full range of motion,” he argued back with a growl, “and this bandage is going to make my arm fall asleep.” 

“Fair enough,” Q chirruped. The dark-haired young man wasn’t finished, however, and as he helped himself to a glass of water, he added dryly, “Of course, if you pull your stitches and end up bleeding out in your next mission because of this, my sympathy will be severely impeded by this moment.”

Snorting, Bond added as he unwound more bandaging from his right shoulder, “And now I’m afraid I may never be able to think of you without adding sweatpants and an undershirt to the mix.  Happy, Quartermaster?”

“If I were happy, I wouldn’t be here,” the smaller man replied enigmatically.  There was no anger in his voice, no viciousness or ire, but 007 still watched the Quartermaster with steady, wary eyes until Q left the room. This time, Q pulled on a coat and left, although when Bond read his steps and his body-language, he thought that the Quartermaster looked way more relaxed than he’d been before now.

Six hours (only four of those containing sleep) later, and Bond was turning up at Q-branch to get a kit for yet another mission.  He’d removed most all of his bandages by then, and was also getting pretty good at hiding his new limp, and Q met him with the same cool indifference that he usually did. There was a bit of their usual verbal jousting, but Bond couldn’t help but think that the worst edge to Q’s words had already been blunted by beating up 007’s punching bag hours ago.

 


	2. Machines of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out that Q breaking into Bond's flat is something of a regular thing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whew!* So I'm still on vacation - but I managed to snatch some wifi! So instead of my usual articulated comments, all you get is me babbling... Oh yeah, and an early chapter!!

Q wasn’t always at 007’s flat, but now that _Bond_ was there more often – spending less time at bars or sleeping in strangers’ beds – he realized that the Quartermaster broke in quite a lot.  _How_ Q was doing it remained a mystery.  Occasionally, Bond would still ask, but he always got an evasive response, and 007 was always too tired himself to really commit his interrogation skills to the task.

Sometimes Q was just a sprawled form on Bond’s sofa.  That made a lot of sense, because James was pretty sure that Q stayed awake for days at a time running around his branch, fixing tech, troubleshooting, taking down cyber-threats like a hot knife cutting through butter, and somehow still finding time to quietly and calmly berate 007 through his earpiece about following directions and not blowing things up.  If ever Q wasn’t at Bond’s place when the agent came home, he figured it was because the slim young man was still raising Cain in Q-branch.

Apparently, whenever Q couldn’t take that anymore, he broke into 007’s flat and crashed on James Bond’s leather sofa. 

Those were the good days, if there were any good days following the fall of M at Skyfall. The world had barely given Bond time to mourn, but the world had entirely dismissed that the new Quartermaster _needed_ to mourn – he’d barely known her, after all, but it hadn’t taken long for 007 to realize that there had been a connection anyway.  M attracted odd sorts to her inner circle, and 007 hadn’t asked how a man as young as Q had gotten the job of Quartermaster.  Either way, it was odd and unexpectedly nice to find someone else who was still bleeding from a wound that no one could see. 

On the bad days, Q would be beating the living daylights out of 007’s punching bag.  Sometimes, he’d do it while listening to music, dressed sensibly in sweats and a T-shirt of some sort.  Other days, he’d be still in his clothes from work, snarling obscenities like he wanted to cut the air with them.  Q could switch languages on a dime, but Bond could translate them all. He only stepped into the room when Q moved on and slammed a bare fist against the wall, and then, Bond didn’t do it out of any need to stop Q – the wall had a layer of padding, expressly because outraged 00-agents tended to do the same thing.  Leaving Q to destroy whatever he felt he needed to, 007 would strip out of his jacket and take a round against the punching bag himself. He had steam to work off, too, and just because Q had started breaking into his flat didn’t mean that it wasn’t still one-hundred percent Bond’s. 

That time, 007 was silently watching the news in his darkened living room when Q left, and he saw the Quartermaster do something complicated to his security system. Briefly, the 00-agent decided to replace the thing, or at least change the entrance code.  Instead, the next day he dropped by Q-branch and left a note: _Get me my exploding pen or I change the locks_.

Q was busy at Q-branch for two days straight after that, and then Bond was stuck in Switzerland for eight days beyond that.  He didn’t know when Q got time to sleep, but some of that time must have been spent at the flat of his most/least favorite agent, because once 007 finally staggered home, he found a bottle of Chardonnay wine and a note that said eloquently, ‘ _Change the locks and you get to find out how many other ways I’ve been getting in.  Come up with more eloquent threats if you really want me to leave._ ’

The last mission had ended in 007 getting caught, and in the hour it had taken him to escape and absolutely lay waste to the entire building, he’d been subjected to torture. After that, MI6 never let an agent out of Psych until they were deemed safe for society, but that had done less to relax Bond and more to annoy him.  Somehow, though, the moment he found Q’s note, a huge chunk of the frustration and slow, sulfurous anger burning in his gut magically disappeared. Instead of snarling, he smirked, although it was a pretty broken sort of smirk all the same.  He found that he didn’t want to change the locks all of a sudden, and Bond stopped pretending that he minded the constant break-ins.

~^~

Q wasn’t really one for showing gratitude.  Then again, 007 wasn’t really one for accepting it.  Their interactions both at MI6 and in Bond’s flat were eerily cordial, with Q maintaining his professionalism like a cat keeping its balance – he did it naturally and smoothly, even when he was too strained to hold the fury in, or so exhausted that he didn’t even stir until 007 physically shook his shoulder where he was sprawled on the sofa.  Q was simply a very calm, self-contained fellow, making him perfect for handling combustible situations and equally incendiary agents.  Bond could walk into a nest full of killers and smile like they were his uncles, but Q could be woken out of a dead-sleep by a bruised and glowering 007 and, after a few drowsy blinks, immediately put on his dry little smile. Eyes almost bored, Q would make some remark as if this were all perfectly normal, and then he’d move about the flat as if he lived there as much as Bond did.

Which, by this point, perhaps he did.  00-agents and Quartermasters both lived hectic lives, the kind where it hardly made sense to put down roots – or, at least, expect to be home for long enough to dust off the mantle. Q practically lived in MI6 like a particularly gifted fish in a particularly militant, flashy fishbowl, and Bond came and went like a migratory bird.  Perhaps, with all of  those odd animal metaphors, James shouldn’t have been surprised that Q was coming and going from his house like a finicky homeless cat. A bit of sniffing on his rare spare time had informed 007 that Q _wasn’t_ homeless, just as a bit of curiosity on Bond’s part had also told him that Q had always been this self-contained, for as far back as records went. Q apparently came from a fairly well-off family, although their last name was so well-hidden that even Bond wouldn’t be able to find it until he had fewer missions and more sleep. Q was a ghost, and the few people who knew that ghost knew him as a dry, razor wit with an unreadable little smile. He had odd little skills when no one expected them – like the ability to reassemble pistols that had had entire pieces fed to crocodiles, or the ability to remotely hack into MI6, or an inexplicable skill at bypassing sophisticated security systems.  007 was able to dig up scraps and bits here and there in his spare time, and it kept his mind off things like killing and torture and secrets that burned his mouth like acid as he carried them home to MI6. Chasing Q’s history helped him forget his, and forget that the only person who knew his entire history – M – was dead and gone forever, no resurrection pending. 

Bond didn’t realize that he actively _liked_ having Q around until he found himself buying a suede sofa to replace the leather one, for no other reason than because the former had to be more comfortable for skinny limbs to sleep on than the latter. 

~^~ 

Q had a habit of working himself to exhaustion.  Bond had a habit of almost dying.  MI6 was probably well aware of both self-destructive tendencies, but with everyone working themselves to the bone in their own ways to maintain order, there was nothing anyone could do.  Perhaps some people _were_ surprised, however, when 007 and Q kept coming back again and again still in one piece.   Mallory noted 007’s swift return to lethal condition when Bond had been testing abhorrently just before the Silva incident – Bond ignored or evaded the information fishing. Moneypenny and Tanner both eyed Q and Bond, looking clearly flummoxed and a bit disturbed that the two hadn’t ripped down the seams yet.  No one said anything, but anyone with an ounce of sense knew that the horrors and stress faced by those two men were far more than anyone should be expected to survive.

This job should have been killing them. 

At times, it came close. When missions didn’t literally try and slay Bond, they could leave him so emotionally ripped apart that he was a danger to the world at large.  Those were the times when he was confined to MI6 – once, he was actually locked up in a holding cell for twenty-four hours, which he had protested vigorously and at length. In the end, Q had let him out. 007 wasn’t sure whether Q was technically supposed to, but when the agent waded out like a battered machine of war to stand in front of the calm-faced boffin, no one with guns appeared to intervene. 

“007,” Q greeted, as mildly as ever. “By your eloquent and varied shouting, I assume you’re ready to get out of lock-up?”

Despite the fact that James was nearly standing on his toes, Q hadn’t fidgeted or flinched yet. In his short time here, Q had stood up to many a 00-agent who were bigger and deadlier than him. On one memorable occasion that 007 had actually been present for, 009 had leaned into Q’s personal space and menaced, “Quartermaster, I don’t think you realize that I’m bigger than you are.”

To which Q had leaned in a few more inches on his own, arms crossed but face emotionless, and had replied, “And I don’t think you realize that _I’m meaner_.”

Still, what Q was doing now as he toed the killing edge with James was another folly entirely. If 007 was still so wound up that he was being locked up in MI6 until he calmed down, no one without a license to kill or a semiautomatic weapon should have been sharing space with him. People didn’t talk about it much, but more collateral damage happened after missions than during them, when nerves were still raw and survival instincts were still set on high. Nonetheless, Q stood there with nothing but a light look on his face, as if mildly interested at best in what Bond would do. 

Fleetingly, 007 remembered that Q had seen him with a busted nose after a pathetic bar-fight, with raw stitches beneath unwrapped bandages that had been making him feel claustrophobic and mortal.  Likewise, Q’s calm hazel eyes said, Bond had seen Q at his most unarmored, with exhaustion and frustration unalloyed by any other things besides a fine veil of professionalism worn thin by too much use.

Understanding passed between them, and Bond made a gruff noise before he flicked his blue eyes past Q and to the exit.  “I think that I’m ready to withstand London – and vice versa.”

“Good,” Q said with his usual, dry cheer, crossing his arms at the wrist behind himself and turning around to leave the little anteroom first.  “I’d hate to have to wipe security cameras in my own city. Get some rest, Bond.”

“Same to you, Quartermaster,” 007 said automatically as the two of them left, the smaller returning to the bowels of MI6 and Bond making his way to the outside world, where he escaped to one of his decoy flats to change and shower and ended up passing out on the bed in a towel.  For a man who did his level best to never sleep alone, the only thing that really bothered him was that this didn’t feel like home, because no stray-cat Quartermaster would be breaking into it. 

~^~

One of the more dangerous Russian factions had finally decided to sling trouble MI6’s way. Bond only knew a fraction of what went on, but was aware that no fewer than four 00-agents were sent to various locations to metaphorically ‘put out fires’ that their enemies thought they could set with impunity.  007 was sent out with a lesser agent as a partner, and the woman nearly ended up dying – precisely whose fault that was remained up for debate, and Bond was actually too tired and drained to consider pointing fingers.  The woman had been impressively efficient before she’d taken a knife to the stomach, though, and the mission was a success.

An exhausting success. Bond wasn’t as physically busted up as he’d been in past times, but he was tired, and could only imagine how the past three weeks had been for everyone else involved.  Still feeling jet-lagged even though he’d slept on the plane home, 007 stumbled into MI6 and dropped off his kit, a journey that showed him a face equally as drained as his – Q had nodded a greeting and proceeded to lament the loss of ninety-percent of Bond’s given tools.  It had been a lackluster lecture, but it was all either of them had the heart for right now.  With a muttered rebuttal that might have insulted Q’s unhealthy love of mechanics over mankind, 007 got out of MI6, feeling the uncomfortable buzz in his veins that said he was running on fumes now.

007 went back to his home flat, glancing around it and pricking his ears to any sounds of intruders. Despite the ease with which Q kept getting in, however, the security system kept out all other would-be burglars, and the place was as quiet as a winter night.  There was no Q shadow-boxing in the converted weight-room, no muffled sound of bad music or hissed cursing in French.  Bond had found out that Q had two brothers, and he was pretty sure what their last name was by now, and that they both probably had the same temper that Q had – all equally well hidden behind walls of adamantine will.

Running on autopilot, Bond showered away the grime and the feeling of being stuck in a plane for hours, and then slept for a few hours.  When he awoke, he was much more alert, but the house was still empty in a way that scratched with a silver needle at his bones.  Feeling as shifty as he had months ago, freshly returned to a broken MI6, Bond changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, jerking on his black leather jacket on top of it before grabbing his keys to see what clubs were open at these hours. The hectic atmosphere and pounding music would match the restless jump of his pulse about now, and even though he’d only been unconscious for five hours, he couldn’t sleep anymore. He hoped a bit of harmless pandemonium would shake the worst dregs of the mission from his soul.

It was an old trick, and was only ever about seventy-five percent effective.  But that was all most agents needed to get them back on track for the next mission, so that was all that mattered.  James wasted a few hours in noise and movement, becoming a menace in poorly lit rooms with a backdrop of aspiring, unskilled musicians – all the while aware that this was only a fraction of the dangerousness he was capable of.  When bouncers eyed him, he smirked and tipped his glass, and when girls too young to drink came up to him, he flirted shamelessly but then disappeared before they could wiggle their way in past his coat.  His blue eyes reflected strobing lights, tired yet calculating, sharp as cut glass yet wrapped up in too much humanity. 

Bond was a bit less feral but by no means tame by the time he returned to his flat.  He’d been getting annoyed by the closeness and the noise and the lights, even as all of those things had obliged to take up some of his hyperawareness and attention.  Limbs still buzzing, he deactivated the locking mechanism for his flat and went in, growing immediately alert in a whole new way as he noticed the lamp in the living room on. “One of these days, I’m going to figure out how you keep getting in,” he said as Q’s head turned from where it was visible over the back of the sofa, all tousled dark hair and spectacles.

“And then what will you do?” asked Q as enigmatically and carelessly as any good stray cat would. He appeared to have an old Western novel in his hands, held beneath the lamp’s yellowed light.

Toeing off his shoes and rolling his left shoulder – painful from a little vehicular roughhousing he’d gotten himself into while saving his partner – Bond thought a moment before admitting with tired sincerity, “Probably nothing.”  Q never broke anything and clearly needed the safe, neutral space as much as a 00-agent did, and James wasn’t enough of a bastard to deny him that. 

Q’s eyes were following him, and didn’t turn back to the book again as Bond collapsed into a chair across the way.  “And what dark alley did they spit you out of?” he commented with delicate wryness.

Feeling his aches and wishing for more alcohol, Bond rocked his head against the back of the chair and growled in the direction of the ceiling, “Not in the mood for catcalling, Quartermaster.”

“Hmm, neither am I,” Q said as if that were the most puzzling thing in the world.  It got 007’s attention again, and he opened one eye to slant it at the other man and really look at him, this interloper in his home. As always, Q was an enigma, but Bond was learning to see the cracks – sliver-thin fissures in the undaunted, unflappable exterior that could face down agents and entire crime organizations alike, with only a computer to protect himself with.  It had been a long three weeks for Q just like it had been for Bond, though, and after a moment, the agent realized that many of his own pains were reflected on that fine-featured face.  Q’s half-lidded eyes were bright with hidden wounds and loss, and 007 felt the urge to ask how many agents they had lost.

Q spoke first. “Do you ever sleep with men, 007?”

The question was just about the last thing 007 had expected, but the shock felt somehow muted in his system – as if he were too jaded for it, or perhaps as if his mind had trod this path before unawares.  “It’s happened before,” he admitted after a long, unreadable pause.  He remained slouched where he was, but now his head was lifted and watching Q with steady awareness.

Q’s expression remained unflappable, and he hadn’t moved either.  He smiled a polite little smile as if to acknowledge the answer, and then went on with just a bit more inflection in his tone, “Do you ever sleep with coworkers?”

Good spies read people for a living, but Q was a slippery person: his personality was reserved and unchanging, his expressions controlled in a fashion that Bond could only call _beautiful_ , and even now it took serious effort to try and read past the cultured words to the man beneath. What 007 couldn’t exactly see, however, his instincts could grasp, and something stirred as the predator in him picked up something _hot_.   He answered again in a low rumble, “It’s happened before.”

“I only ask,” Q said, all manners and unaffected candidness, closing his book, “because it’s been a long week and I’m in need of a good fuck.”  Those hazel eyes glinted, as sharp as his intellect behind thick spectacles. “You appear to be available, so I was wondering if you’d be interested.”

007 was surprised himself at how quickly he responded, his reply made of motion.  He rolled smoothly to his feet and crossed the distance to the Quartermaster like a wave crashing in, waiting for no further invitation before catching Q’s mouth in a rough, biting kiss.  “Glad it isn’t in your nature to ask permission,” Q deadpanned in the brief seconds he was allowed up for air, voice still ridiculously steady despite having a 00-agent like Bond on him.  Q had barely moved, still sitting on the sofa with his feet curled up and his closed book on his lap.  Bond’s kiss had pressed his head back hard into the sofa, but his pupils were unmistakably blown dark and wide now as he looked up.

“You’re not the only one who’s had a long week,” 007 husked warningly, leaning close and boxing Q in, “Don’t offer what you don’t want to give.” 

Despite the obvious arousal in his eyes, and the way his body arched unconsciously in a slow, restless flex, the smaller man’s eyes were steady as stones.  “I’m not in the business of even suggesting things like this if I don’t think I want them.”  He glanced down to Bond’s mouth, and his tone grew just the tiniest bit impish, “You’ve seen me in Q-branch.  I’m hardly some sort of pushover.”

No, Q was definitely not that. He looked far more like a war admiral commanding armies when his branch was in the thick of things, and even Bond watched himself when he entered the boffin’s territory. Besides, suddenly the idea of Q’s body under him was like a drug, and it was all he wanted.  “I can’t promise how gentle I’ll be,” he grunted as he eased a knee up onto the sofa between Q’s knees, allowing himself to come in closer. His lips brushed Q’s as they talked.

Hazel eyes tracked him with growing hunger of their own.  “I’m not an idiot, Bond.  If gentle was what I wanted, I definitely could have gone elsewhere.”

“Instead you found a 00-agent just coming down from a mission-high.”

Q’s smirk was its own agreement.  He eased his head forward, just a bit, and when their lips connected it spurred Bond into action again – he instantly deepened the kiss and licked his way past Q’s teeth. He hunted out Q’s gasp like it was the only air he was allowed to breath.  Apparently Q still had enough oxygen for snark, however, because he added to his wordless agreement of a moment ago, “Word on the MI6 grapevine is that you’re an easy lay regardless of circumstances, 007.”

“Insulting me is going to cost you,” growled the larger man as he finally got impatient with words and let his actions do the talking.  He silenced the Quartermaster roughly but thoroughly, mapping out the inside of his mouth as Q let him in without reserve.  Bond gripped Q’s waist and, when the Quartermaster arched his back away from the sofa with a moan, took the opportunity to dig out the tails of Q’s shirt, untucking it and slipping his hands beneath it to find silky, warm skin. Inevitably, 007’s strength was the deciding factor in where they ended up next, as he twisted Q around and pushed, sending the smaller man sprawling on his back on the sofa with a little huff of breath.  Live-wire eyes looked up beneath heavy lids, and for a second Bond just hovered, taking in the heady sight. Then he dropped down on Q, still half-kneeling on the edge of the sofa but now pushing Q bodily down into it.  He bit a path of little, swiftly fading marks up and down Q’s neck while the Quartermaster’s fingernails dug for purchase in his leather jacket.  007 lowered himself downwards, forcing Q’s knees to part so that he could press between them and get close, close, _close_ … Maybe it was the mission he’d just survived, maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the forgiving familiarity of Q’s skin, but suddenly 007 couldn’t get enough.  Q moaned out a little delighted sound, and didn’t protest in the slightest, although he was still being stymied a bit by Bond’s tough coat. One of Q’s hands finally took up residence in the older man’s hair instead, long fingers grasping almost delicately at short, blond strands.  When Q pushed up against him, touching from hip to chest with his back bending into a shallow, perfect bow, 007 panted out lowly against Q’s ear, “Bed. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shortles smugly* Look at me, giving the characters opportunities for sex in the second chapter, and then leaving it as a cliffhanger... *runs off to more vacationing with sporadic internet access*


	3. Elbow-deep in the Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What in the world has Bond gotten himself into? 
> 
> Or the chapter in which 007 ends up bedding the Quartermaster, with his usual lack of thinking things through. He likes it, but he's pretty sure that dogs like the taste of Antifreeze, too... Oh well - the life of a 00-agent is always doomed to be a brief but interesting one, and nothing can get much more interesting than the mercurial creature that is Q!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter - right on time to start an early weekend, and to give everyone the conclusion to that cliff-hanger I whammied everyone with! Enjoy!

 Q must had been having a horrible week indeed, for he agreed not only wholeheartedly but also swiftly, pushing up so fast that 007 growled – albeit into another superb kiss. From sitting equally on the sofa to clumsily standing, Bond managed to maintain bodily contact, and Q used the excuse to lap at his lips and the inside of his mouth as ravenously as 007 had gone after his.  Bond grinned rather impishly as he guided Q’s hands at long last under his coat, although they hardly needed the help by this point.  The agent just loved the feel of wrist bones beneath his briefly crushing grip, followed by the possessive grabbing of Q’s hands against the softer material of 007’s black tee. 

As they stumbled back into the bedroom, 007 moving backwards with remarkable grace for all that his eyes were half-closed and his attention all on Q, the larger man spared just enough focus to shuck off his coat.  The worn leather hit the ground with a satisfying sound of its dismissal from the proceedings.  “Take it off,” Bond commanded, as Q’s hands continued playing with his shirt – a shirt that 007 intended to see the Quartermaster pulling off him. He sucked the lobe of Q’s ear into his teeth and bit hard enough to make Q hiss.  There was no gentleness between them; Q’s kisses against Bond’s mouth were bruisingly rough in return.  Vibrating with the need to take and to control, 007 growled again, “Take it off, Q.”

“Only if you’ll make it worth my while,” Q breathed in return, but apparently didn’t doubt that the agent would, because he hooked his fingers under 007’s shirt and dragged it upwards. Bond slithered fluidly out of it, pulling Q’s face back in for a long, blistering kiss.  Halfway through and he was already returning the favor Q had done him, albeit more teasingly slowly, letting his hands drag on quivering, warm skin just to feel it tense and sway under his fingertips. He’d been invited to touch, so he was _going_ to touch. The 00-agent groaned against Q’s mouth as he felt dexterous fingers mapping him out similarly.

Then Bond broke the kiss and stepped back, using the room as well as cold, hard-earned focus to divest Q of everything from the belt up in impatient movements. He spun Q around and had him against the wall by the bed a second later, roughly grinding their hips closer while he drew Q’s hands up above his head.  With one hand, he caged them, and looked into remarkably untroubled hazel eyes. “You have any problem with this?” he asked bluntly, his own arousal already straining at his ability – or desire – to control it.  All 00-agents were predators, but especially right after weeks in the field like he’d been, they were the kinds of monsters that regular folk were wise to walk away from.

Q was not ‘regular folk’, however.  “I said I needed a hard fuck, Bond.  Take me out of my head,” he said with level command, eyes on Bond’s, fingertips stretching down to scratch at the hand pinning his wrists like trapped birds.  It wasn’t a warning scratch, but a beckoning one. ‘ _Get on with it_ ,’ came through the slight touch like a livewire making contact. 

It was like the earth grounding lightning, and what little restraint 007 had had deserted him.

Q was on the bed seconds later, more or less tossed there, his light build seemingly made for that kind of thing.  Still in his slacks, he shimmied backwards to give his larger partner room, staring with open appreciation as the 00-agent took the time to remove his own remaining clothing. Bond stood unapologetically naked at the side of the bed for a total of three seconds before he was crawling over Q again, biting at his chest and nipples. 

“Impatient,” Q grunted.

“You complaining?” was the gruff reply back.  Bond shuddered and arched his back like a big cat as Q’s fingernails dug in, a bit of rough play that was perfect right now. 

Seeing the response, the Quartermaster dragged his fingers down the sides of Bond’s ribs, as he corrected throatily, “No.  Sympathizing.  Get on with it already.”

There were no more conversation that night, except for incoherent calls and gasped words that might have been names or pleas.  The roughness of their week was translated into their actions, and 007’s hands put bruises into Q’s thighs and hips even as Q bit harsh marks into any patch of skin he could reach.  Q flew higher the rougher they got, and somewhere Bond recalled thinking of how Q was an alley-cat while the smaller man drew red lines down his back.  Bond murmured filthy things in his ear and Q swore back at him in return, and both of them burned off steam that way.

Q was incredibly flexible, and also stronger than he looked – what mattered most was that he was able to take everything 007 had to give.  With a trained assassin surging into him again and again, Q locked his heels against the small of Bond’s back and rode it out, chest heaving and the flat contours of his muscles flexing, long-fingered hands braced against the headboard until Bond trapped them again, pinning them down by the wrists. 007 knew that he was succeeding in Q’s request – taking him roughly, pushing him out of his head – when Q would writhe and all of his muscles tighten, doing exquisite things where Bond was buried to the hilt inside of him.  Bond was ruthless, taking the smaller man to the edge and holding him there for ages, just so he could watch as Q’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth open in a soundless little gasp that 007 couldn’t remember seeing in other lovers before.  Q at his highest was silent, as if the world muted itself just for him.

Go figure that even things like that would bow before the will of the Quartermaster.

No one cared who came first. No one cared that they hadn’t been gentle or said all the flowery things that went between lovers – because they weren’t.  Bond was aware of that as his brain whited out and he collapsed over Q, feeling every shuddering, quivering moment as the Quartermaster hit his climax as well, biting down on 007’s shoulder as he did.  Instead of snarling at the pain of teeth, Bond moaned, hips jerking spasmodically as the shock of discomfort wrung a few last waves of pleasure from him. As aftershocks of pleasure chased themselves up and down Bond’s back, he just closed his eyes and focused on every little twitch and shudder of his Quartermaster flush to his skin beneath him. Q quivered like a livewire and then…sighed.  He removed his mouth, rocked his nose into the lee of Bond’s neck, and sighed out the most superb ‘thank you’ that 007 had ever heard. 

There weren’t even any words to it, just a breath so full of peace that Bond felt his brain shutting down like a tired world letting in the night. 

~^~

The blinds kept back the light admirably, but thin slivers of it raised the ambient light of the room just enough to get 007 to open his eyes.  He felt sluggish and immediately knew that he’d had a late night, because he wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.  As he reached drowsily for his phone on the bedside table (to check and see if he had any life-or-death messages), however, he brushed up against warm skin that wasn’t his.

007 froze, up on one elbow, in a fashion that was probably comical had anyone been watching. His blue eyes widened and his muscles locked up, and all he could do was stop and stare down at the bed next to him. It seemed…so much like a drunken dream. Bond actually paused and ran a hand over his face, but when he dropped his arm and opened his eyes again, he was looking down at the same aristocratically straight nose and tangled dark hair. Q’s glasses were even on the bedside table by his phone and Walther.  Against the deep gold-cinnamon color of the covers and the ivory sheets beneath, Q’s skin looked like alabaster, his dark hair fading from sable to onyx in the shadows.

In short, he looked gorgeous, and Bond hadn’t thought that about a man in bed with him in as far back as he could remember.

It wasn’t that Bond didn’t sleep with both sexes – he did, rather unscrupulously. It was just that nearly all of his partners were female when he off-mission and sober, and even when he had to seduce a man for work or got so drunk he didn’t have a preference, he usually wasn’t overly attracted to the male form when he woke up.  That was just the way his interests swung. Now, though, insanely, he found himself looking down at lithe limbs curled up under his blankets and couldn’t help but trace them fondly with his eyes.

“I am _so_ fucked,” Bond muttered under his breath as he collapsed back down, flat on his back.  He pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes as if he could block this all out. This was possibly the most foolish thing he’d ever done on so little alcohol. 

Thankfully, Q hadn’t even stirred yet.  He seemed awfully comfortable dozing away, and Bond’s traitorous brain immediately said that he had every right to.  While James could silence that smug little voice in his head, he couldn’t remove the relaxed, sated feeling in his own body, which reminded him vividly of the night before. He’d been wound up tighter than a bowstring, and was as lethal as a tripwire, truth be told, but somehow that dangerous combination had meshed perfectly with Q’s cracking calm and burning, mind-shattering stress. 

Bond glanced over and immediately wished he hadn’t, because his first thought was that Q looked even more natural curled up in his sheets than he did sprawled out on his sofa.

Mallory wasn’t going to believe this.  Oh, he’d believe that Bond had gotten stupid and fucked his own Quartermaster – 007’s conquests notoriously ranged from impressive to downright idiotic.  He had a habit, in fact, of sleeping with people that he was not supposed to, and Mallory knew that even after his short time as head of MI6. What would really shock everyone was that 007 was suffering from emotional attachment after just one good romp in the sheets.

Although, to be fair, it had been a bloody good romp. 

“Bond.” Q’s voice startled the agent, making him look over.  The smaller man hadn’t bothered to move, but his eyebrows had pulled low over his nose into a scowl, eyes still closed.  “Stop overthinking things.”

Never had orders been so welcome.  007 managed to snort as if this were either annoying or amusing, and he lounged in bed a bit longer, ostensibly ignoring the way his Quartermaster carelessly stretched out beneath the sheets.  Just as Q didn’t care if 007 knew that he’d broken into his house (repeatedly), he now appeared unembarrassed about lazing naked in his bed.  Bond had expected to be the shameless one, but instead it was all he could do to stay still and feign nonchalance. 

He’d slept with Q. The man who was a voice in his ear on missions, who threatened him like no one else but the old M did when he was being a pain in the arse, and who only broke down and showed slivers of his human side in 007’s flat.  Q, whom James had pressed close to as they’d both shuddered through their climaxes with fear and pain and anger washing slowly off of them.  They’d cleaned their souls with lust and flesh, and there was no way to even look back on the memory without admitting that it was one that bore repeating, if Q would allow it. 

Bond had no idea how he’d become so tangled up so quickly.  Then again, he also had no idea when it had become normal to walk in on a stranger in his flat and not draw his gun either. 

~^~

It did turn into a regular thing.  Q was unabashed about sex, and 007 was largely immoral when it came to deciding who he should and should not continue sexual relations with.  A very large, logical part of him was screaming that this was a Bad Idea (with all the capital letters intact), and that the only thing worse than regularly sleeping with his Quartermaster was doing so with possible emotions tossed into the mix.  As for Q, he didn’t appear emotionally encumbered at all – but Q also had a poker face that would allow him to play against the whole host of double-oh’s if he felt like it. If he had any emotions, Bond couldn’t see them. 

Life was still fast and tough for anyone in MI6, and as often as not, Q or Bond were busy trying to keep the British end up in ways that were nearly too unscrupulous to contemplate. Q had a particularly vicious look that he got on his face whenever he was buried deep in the servers of a foreign threat, a frostbite-cold look that was somehow contained within the tiniest little frown and the barest beetling of his brows.   Some people mistakened Q’s calm exterior for weakness or docility, but the true fierceness of his nature showed in moments like that, when he took down opponents electronically as if he were pulling out hearts with bare hands.  007 didn’t pretend to know anything about what went on in the cyber-world of computers, but if anyone didn’t fear Q in that realm, they were too brain-dead to matter. Bond still snapped at and back-talked the Quartermaster when he carried his voice around in his earpiece, but whenever it came to something in Q’s area of expertise, James got used to following orders almost before they were out of the boffin’s mouth. He got shot less often that way.

He still got shot. A lot.  Nothing had killed or maimed him so far, though, and whoever shot him never lived long to regret that bad decision.  What Q was from his desk, Bond was actively in the field. He was the flesh-and-blood, visceral extension of the ripping power contained in Q’s coding.

Despite the fact that they were doing a lot to rebuild MI6’s power and reputation after the fall of M – who had been nearly as feared as a person as she had been respected as a public figurehead for the organization – Q and Bond came home broken more often than not. Bond got beaten, chased, tortured, and nearly killed, and some days those options were preferable to the even more vicious sins he committed on others.  Friend and foe alike he’d hurt, all in the name of Queen and Country and the fabled greater good. 

Q lost people. Q gave commands and intel and followed agents from his little perch in their ear, and from that perch he sometimes watched and heard them die.  Sometimes, his very words were what doomed them, although never on purpose – that was one thing Q couldn’t conscience.  He wouldn’t sacrifice one agent to save another, not when there was the barest chance he could save both, and 007 secretly found that immensely honorable…and comforting.  It made Q different from the others (from M, from Mallory who now had taken her place), and it also made his heart an open, beckoning target whenever things went south and agents died.  This Q was more than his predecessors: he was a handler, a voice of reason that never left their ear.

Even when that last bullet with an agent’s name on it came screaming in. 

Those times were rare. Q was good at his job, and everyone else (agents included) was, too.  Dying was something everyone did their level best to avoid. Still, even if no one died and every mission was a walk in the park, the work was long and exhausting, and eventually 007 and Q’s timetables intersected and put their weary, battered bodies in the same flat at the same time.  If they didn’t cross paths, they passed out alone.

If Bond did, however, come into his flat to find Q there – either working out his fury on the punching bag or hiding his exhaustion in a nonfiction book – they invariably ended up tumbling into bed together. 

Bond could flip moods on a switch, mostly on command, but Q was mercury.  Beneath that mask of professional aplomb, he hid a million emotions, and all of them burned…and all of them made Bond want to bury his hands elbow-deep in the flames.   Maybe it was the natural, risk-taking nature of being an agent; Bond was equally attracted to Q’s sharper, more cutting qualities as he was to the unflappable side of him.  What was more, Q was always the one to instigate it, often after eyeing 007 with a calm and not particularly affected look on his fine-featured face.  “If those bruises aren’t as bad as they look, I could do with a shag,” he’d say as graciously as if he were discussing simple science. Sometimes a little smile would dryly grace his features, and something would ignite in 007’s stomach. “Unless you’re not up for it?”

“I’ll take you right over that table, Q, if you don’t move your arse.”

Usually, they made it to the bed, but if 007 were particularly bellicose or Q really needed something to take the edge off, the sofa, floor, or even the table did just as well. Gentleness and softness left room for thinking, for emoting, and Q just wanted something to make his nerves sing and his brain turn off – Bond just wanted a release for the monster under his skin that wasn’t ready to go quietly back to sleep yet. 

Bond gathered a lot of bites, Q a lot of bruises.  Q only slept in on those mornings when he’d been fucked to sleep at night, and Bond only woke up early when he looked with discomfort and guilt upon the sprawled limbs and dark hair and the angry, mottled marks he’d pressed into that lovely pale skin. It was too hard to think these thoughts when he was in the moment – when he and Q were approaching each other like storms, when things other than his brain were making the decisions – but when morning woke him, it was impossible to look back and not wince a bit at his own roughness.  He never hurt Q beyond rough grips or sucked-in bruises, but there was definitely no kindness in his hands when they met.  Kindness and pleasure, he knew, were not the same thing.  Q never seemed to mind the difference, which was odd, because wasn’t it 00-agents who were supposed to be trained to act without regret?

“You’re a Holmes,” Bond said one night, as he had Q down on his front, 007 fully sunk into him and Bond’s bodyweight pressing him down against the sheets. Escaping the topic was as impossible as escaping Bond himself at that moment.

Q’s head turned, lips already slightly parted as he panted, accustoming himself quickly to 007’s girth. “Well spotted,” was the short reply without any real heat in it – there wasn’t any surprise, either, as if Q had expected this eventuality.  Despite the fact that James had found out a secret that no one else (besides perhaps Mallory) knew, the Quartermaster was unflustered.  

“I’m an international spy – I hunt down secrets,” Bond grunted as he grabbed Q’s wrists like a time-honored rite, drawing them up past Q’s head (bent down against the blankets again as he shuddered in anticipation) and pressing them to the headboard as if to brand them there.  Bond’s fingers looked blunt and scarred next to Q’s dexterous digits, but he’d already learned that Q reveled in the contrast between the two of them. The 00-agent rolled his hips to elicit a rough gasp from the man under him, whom he still hadn’t learned to be gentle with yet.  Maybe if Q ever asked, he could do it, but not before, it seemed.  “I can’t turn that part of myself off.”

“A grand excuse for nosiness,” Q said with an eye-roll evident in his words.  Bond chuckled impulsively, then hid the warm response by pressing his teeth down into the juncture of Q’s neck and shoulder, making Q squirm – he couldn’t go far, though, not with Bond stretched over him and holding his wrists, and so deep inside of him.  The movement resulted in both of them groaning, and the conversation was lost in hunger that never seemed like it could be sated.

Bond had found out the information only through hours upon hours of labor (spread out whenever he could snatch the time between sleep, work, and sweaty moments like these with Q himself), digging up leads, calling in favors that he normally would have saved for more life-or-death occasions.  It had been even harder to do this sort of hunting without attracting attention, because this wasn’t MI6 sanctioned business, and the more Bond learned, the more he realized that the Holmes family wouldn’t look kindly upon someone sniffing around.  Even a 00-agent could be put in deep water by powerful enough people. 

Mycroft Holmes was a powerful enough person to probably make James swing on a noose if he so wished. Somehow, that unspoken, hovering threat didn’t trouble 007 at all as he sought to know more about the Quartermaster who was made of silk and steel.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look... is that the word 'Holmes' I see? O_O I wonder what that means for the story, and the various levels of trouble everyone is going to get into...? tehe Not a cliffhanger, but hopefully I've got everyone interested enough to wait for the next chapter!


	4. Insane Where You're Concerned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting better for MI6, until 007 is sent to shut down a child-slavery ring. Bond has to make some tough decisions, and so does Q - and not all ends up for the best.

For about a month and a half, missions were light, so it seemed that MI6 had regained its footing in the world of espionage.  Everyone was just starting to breathe a collective sigh of relief…and then Bond was sent to crush an international child slavery ring, and Q was scheduled to overseeing that mission as well as _three_ others concurrently (none of which could survive without his input). Just when life looked like it was going to get easy, fate liked to dump bad luck in people’s laps, it seemed.

Bond’s mission went to hell in a hand-basket.  Then again, slavery rings never went out any other way, and 007 had known that from the get-go. There were all sorts of assignments like this, and he remembered all of them quite clearly: the moment where the mission orders appeared in his hands, and it felt like looking at the devil’s hand-writing, telling him that he’d be walking into Hell soon. Whether he walked back out was always between him and his survival instinct.  In simple terms, 007 hated having to deal with slavers.  They hated to deal with him in return, because he expressed his distemper in the form of bullets in brains.

“You seem almost surprised that they’re trying to kill you.  You shot six of them, 007,” Q deadpanned through the earpiece.

Ushering along a gaggle of liberated captives that couldn’t be over fifteen (which just about made 007 sick when blood and gore didn’t), 007 growled back, “I’m not surprised that they’re after me, I’m frustrated that there were more than six.” One girl who was little more than skin and bones in a dirty skirt and tank-top stumbled, and he grabbed her arm to pull her up and keep her moving.  Considering that other, less benevolent people had been grabbing her for days, it was no surprise that she flinched before regaining her balance.

“Well, there were more than six, and I don’t have as many security cameras as I’d like around you – I can’t see exactly what’s going on,” Q went on, sounding tense but hiding it well, “What I do know is that you definitely have people who want revenge for you blithely putting down their comrades.”

Bond could hear the shouting to prove Q’s words right.  “I’m aware.”

“Be more than aware. Move faster,” the Quartermaster snapped.

“That’s a bit hard, Q, considering I’m not exactly alone in this,” growled the agent back as his own cool snapped.  He urged everyone along a bit faster, but most of them were either emaciated or barefoot, and all eight were scared out of their mind.  The only reason they were moving as fast as they were was because they’d seen one of their fellows executed by the slavers in front of their very eyes, right before James had engineered their escape. 

Yes, 007 definitely hated slavers.

Q’s huff was a tight burst of sound in 007’s ear, familiar and sharp.  There was silence that 007 trusted to mean Q was trying to find an answer, back in MI6 with all of his minions and computers.  When Q’s voice came back, however, it was flat and somber and not at all encouraging, “Do you want to get your entourage out with you?”

“Q, what kind of answer is that?”

Another sigh, this one more tired.  007 felt an uncomfortable feeling in his chest when he heard a noise that might have indicated Q rubbing a hand over his face (or at least that was what Bond imagined). “I thought you’d say that. Go figure you pick now to have a conscience.” 

Voices were getting closer, and they weren’t out of the building yet…it was looking less and less likely that they would.  Bond ran with his gun out and by his side, tallying how many bullets he had left. Too few, even with the extra ammo he had hidden under his suit-jacket.  “What, Q? Spit it out,” he demanded, and ignored the worried looks from the kids running next to him.

“On your own, you could keep ahead of your opponents – but at the speed you’re moving currently with your young charges, you haven’t a snowball’s chance.  Unless you send the kids on ahead while you stall the opposition.”

Usually, 007 was only ever put in a position of having to watch his own back.  Now, this idea of risking his life for a flock of scrappy little kids sent a cold shiver of premonition up his back – a feeling of death knocking.  “Is that an order?” he joked grimly.

Q wasn’t in the mood to josh. “I won’t order something like that. Ever.”

“The way you say that, it sounds like you don’t think I’ll win,” Bond found it in him to smirk and retort with more of his usual devil-may-care humor, and he made up his mind in that moment. “Better start playing the heroic music, Q – I’m going to buy these kids a bit of time.”

“Oh god,” Q groaned, “Save me from melodramatic 00-agents.  You’ve got at least four people on your tail, most certainly armed. Don’t do anything witless.”

“Consider ‘cleverness’ my middle name.”

“Reckless is your middle name,” Q dryly corrected, then there was a pause, and a far softer addition, “Be careful.”

There was no time for talking after that, as 007 urged his little group on ahead of him – making it clear that they were to run faster and not look back, especially if they heard shooting. He kept his voice down, and then flattened his back to the first available wall as he turned a corner. “Correction – five shooters,” Q’s collected voice came through his earpiece.  Bond didn’t reply, but took in the information with a small, noncommittal hum, leaning out just far enough to see anyone coming. He didn’t have to wait long.

Bond dropped two people before the slavers got smart, shouting and backpedaling.  A few more gunshots from the opposing party forced 007 to duck back around the corner as well.  He grumbled over the one bullet he’d wasted, buried in a back wall instead in a body like the other two.  “Status, Bond,” came the demanding call in his ear, still low and quiet.

“Working on it.” Bond leaned out far enough to peel off another shot, two in quick succession to keep his opponents out of sight. He could still hear noise from both directions, so he knew that the kids were hardly far enough away yet to be counted as safe.  Fine then, 007 could work with that – if he was already being heroic, he may as well go all the way.  With his opponents still hiding from his aim, Bond went deeper into the wolf’s maw, finding a new doorway to hide in.  Someone else came down the hallway, but the angle was wrong for Bond to get a shot off, and he nearly got shot instead. 

Q didn’t distract him with words, but James was fully aware of how hard that was for the Quartermaster, because he could hear the frustrated little breaths right through the earpiece. Since Bond had seen Q in all the permutations of frustration, it barely took any effort to imagine the extra hardness in Q’s eyes, the way his lips thinned with the kind of fury few people had the ability – or sense – to hide.  People thought that Q felt little because he showed little.

Those people were fools.

“Getting a little boxed in, but nothing I haven’t gotten out of before,” he took the time to inform his Quartermaster.

That unlocked a few words in return: “Recall that sometimes your getting out of fixes includes an inordinate number of bullets on the wrong side of your skin.”

“Oh, come on, Q,” 007 chided, ducking out and then ducking back in behind the wall as shots rang out. He’d seen where a few of his opponents were, however, which made him grin a small and vicious grin. “This is a new suit. I’m not going to ruin it.”

Q just scoffed, and 007 turned back to business.  It was guerilla warfare in the hallways – at least five slavers against one lethal 00-agent. The slavers, by dint of their numbers, had more guns, but Bond used his better, and he’d been in enough situations like this to last five lifetimes.  Beyond that, he had a peeved and determined Quartermaster at his back. “Bond, do you still have that pen I gave you?”

“The one with the radio signal?”

“Yes and no,” was the hedged reply, which James listened to with one ear as he was forced to quit his hiding place for a better one.  “It has a signal in it that lets me track you, but it also is a bomb.”

007 paused in his shooting, even though he’d been backed into a corner and was kept safe only by the fear his pursuers had of him.  “I’ve been carrying an explosive device in my breast pocket and you neglected to mention that?”

“I didn’t want the power to go to your head.”

“Q…you gave me an exploding pen.” Bond was prevented from laughing by a bullet tearing through the doorframe next to him, shredding the left sleeve of his suit and tearing a furrow in his arm just below the curve of his shoulder. Bond snarled and swore, but then gritted his teeth to sublimate the pain.  “Tell me how it works, Q.”

“It’s simple. You tell me when you’re clear, and I detonate it,” Q answered sternly, “It only activates remotely. I couldn’t very well just send you off with control of a bomb, now, could I?”

007 smirked even as he groused, “Oh ye of little faith.”

“Oh, I have faith – faith that you’ll blow up anything that looks remotely available. Now, could you please do so now, before we all die of old age?” Q returned as stoically as always. Only the faintest edge on his voice gave away something that might have been worry, and which 007 grabbed onto with a sudden and vicious strength. 

Outwardly, the 00-agent remained cool and flippant, because that was what everyone expected of a man in his profession.  He glanced to his bleeding arm.  “Well, I suppose, since they’ve already ruined my suit…”  Plucking the harmless-seeming pen from where it still clung to his shirt-pocket, 007 returned to the fray with renewed vigor.

He should have known that luck never lasted in missions like this, however. 

Everything blurred. A few more bullets, a lot more chaos; yelling at Q to wait – not yet, not yet.  Never had 007 realized that the Quartermaster could be so bloodthirsty, yet it was James holding him back from detonating the very bomb 007 kept clutched in his hand.  Q’s calm slowly shattered with every second that passed, with the 00-agent still in danger, and Bond quietly endured the way Q’s dry, level voice became as sharp and harsh as shark’s hide against his ear.  Bond was the one in the field, though, and he knew that the kind of trouble he was in wouldn’t be fixed by the amount of explosives contained in one sleek little pen.

More blurring. More pain.  Not all success stories ended well for the agents involved. The slavers had lost their goods, but they’d gained themselves a 00-agent.  Bond was woozy from agony and from injuries sustained, but someone should have realized that his eyes were still too sharp, and that with every blow they dealt him while he was tied up there, that blue gaze got colder and more feral. Q was still in his ear, berating him with increasing fury and brittle panic.  His words couldn’t stir Bond into motion – not restrained as he was – but beneath everyone’s notice, each curse and snarl in the agent’s ear stoked a fire that was waiting patiently. 

For what were agents trained to do, if not wait out the pain and watch for the opening they needed?

“Thanks to you, we lost a merry load of cash.  Maybe we’ll have to take the balance out of your skin, you smarmy bastard.”

“I wonder what would happen if we sold _you_.”

“Think about it, mister. What you saved those brats from? That could be you. So just tell us who you work for.”

007 just chuckled as the threats went on, because, sadly, it was nothing he hadn’t heard before. Q’s voice was another matter: James had never heard it so thistle-edged and angry.  No one had discovered the earpiece still hidden in 007’s ear, and Q was using that opportunity to berate James with growing desperation. “Bond, I swear, if you don’t do something to save yourself, I’m going to take every last one of your suits and dump them in the sewers.”  007 stayed silent and tried not to smirk.  “Dammit, I know you can hear me.  And I _know_ that you can get yourself out of this fix! You always do.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Bond dared to murmur as he lifted his head a bit, his unkempt appearance somehow serving to make his crystalline eyes look more vicious.  At the sound of his voice, so suave and easy, his captors paused and narrowed their eyes.  One had been readying a knife, and definitely _not_ to cut Bond loose.

“Right up until you’re dead,” Q sniped back. 

“What did you say?” one of the slaver’s said, approaching with his knife and tipping 007’s head back with it. 

007 smiled pleasantly, ignoring as the scab over his freshly-split lip pulled back open and leaked red down his chin.  “I was talking about how the pen in my breast pocket has a homing beacon on it, so you lot are already dead.”

The instant fury on the slaver’s face was a pleasure to watch, and any pain 007 felt was overshadowed by the warmth of success as the pen was plucked from behind his jacket. The slavers were swearing, but Bond just continued to smile, and murmured, “Now, Q.”

“I’m not an idiot,” was the swiftly hissed reply, “I know you’re in the same room.  That blast-”

“I said _now,_ Q!”

Bond kicked over the chair he was tied to as hard as he could, rolling and skidding away on the floor. Behind him, without a second more of hesitation, the pen exploded in the midst of the slavers, just as they moved to crush it on the floor.  Whiteness and heat became the world. 

~^~

“Dismantling slavery rings is like voluntarily sticking your hand into a meat grinder,” 007 complained with feeling, wincing.  His earpiece was toast, but he’d found a phone not long after he’d dodged the local authorities. Cops were all well and good for scooping up escaped kids and finding the ripped, scorched bodies of slavers, but they had a bad habit of blaming things on 00-agents and getting word back to MI6 that Bond was misbehaving.  He’d made sure that all the young captives had indeed gotten out, and then 007 had pulled a disappearing act before hunting up a phone. 

He’d thought he’d reached Q, working his way through the MI6 channels to Q-branch, but it was a different voice that answered.  “007. The reports we got of the explosion were indicative of your death.”

Eyes going cold and tense, 007 demanded, “Who is this?”

“R.  I’m to inform you that the mission is not over. Traffic cameras show at least three key suspects escaping, although your bomb did good work.”

“Not my bomb – Q’s,” Bond found himself saying sternly, and his hackles were already rising. “Where is he?”

There was a sigh, and it actually sounded very sympathetic and even worried all of a sudden. R sounded less like the second-in-command of Q-branch and more like a shaken human being as he continued more softly, “007, he’s been overseeing missions for three weeks straight. The last time any of us actually saw him sleep was nearly four days ago, and that was on the couch in his office for a few hours.”  There was a pause, but before Bond’s frustrated growl could grow into harsh words, R blurted out, “He collapsed only half an hour ago.  I think Medical has him.”

“Bloody…” Bond cut himself off because there honestly weren’t words for the emotions tearing through him. He was in the middle of a busy pavement, hidden in plain sight with a newly stolen coat hiding the worst of his rough appearance.  A swipe of his tongue told him that his lip was leaking red again, which people would notice, but he suddenly didn’t care.  “Get me a flight home.”

R was clearly startled. “What?”

“Let me rephrase,” snarled the agent in a voice like smoke: soft, dark, and heralding a slow death. “Get me a flight home or I’ll string pieces of you from London to Ireland.”  While R stuttered in frightened shock, 007 reined in his explosion of temper, rubbing at his jaw and squeezing his eyes briefly shut.  “I’ll finish the mission, R, but I need to see Q.”

“We’ll tell him you’re alive-”

“R, Q’s the best you’ve got – the best you’ve ever had.  Correct?” Bond changed tact.

There was a pause. “Yes,” was finally squeaked out.

“Do you want him back on the job?”

“Of course-!”

“Then tell him that I’m not dead, and book me a flight home.  The faster you get me back to London, the faster I’ll ship out again and finish this business.  If Mallory catches you, just tell him the truth,” 007 went on, steady and sensible despite the welter of emotions careening through him, “That I threatened you and was acting unreasonable.”  With any luck, if Mallory got mad (which he would, if he heard about this sudden and inexplicable detour), he’d take it out on Bond, who was more than used to being in trouble. 

Either R was fully aware that 007 was serious about his threat, or Q-branch was more aware of the odd connection between Bond and Q than previously thought.  Either way, he didn’t question any more, but prepared to ship the 00-agent back to MI6 with all speed.

~^~

On the plane, 007 had time to calm down and think logically about his actions.  Basically, he came to the conclusion that he was going insane, but only where Q was concerned.  After all, he’d been acting sensibly up until he’d realized that something was wrong with the Quartermaster, and then his logic had gone right off the tracks. Q was probably fine – he wasn’t exactly the first person to end up in Medical due to work-related reasons, and it hadn’t sounded like he was dying.  Even if he was, there was nothing 007 could do that Medical couldn’t. Mallory was also going to skin his top agent alive when he found out, but there was nothing 007 could do but brace himself, because he wasn’t turning around.  His mission could wait a few days – he’d tracked these slavers down once, and he could do it again – no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise, there was an itch to get back to Q. 

Grudgingly, James could admit that there was probably more to this than just the physical side of it. R had been texting him since their last phone-call, feeding the agent information that probably would end in someone getting fired under other circumstances – but R was running Q-branch now, and Bond had a license to kill that hadn’t been (successfully) challenged yet. The messages were cryptic, because texting wasn’t precisely a safe means of communication, but it sounded like Q had lost _two other_ agents before 007’s brush with death.  And then Q had basically commanded 007’s demise as well, to the point where James was honestly lucky to be alive and only moderately damaged – if Q weren’t suffering from exhaustion and borderline malnutrition, he’d be dodging the Psych department. Bond knew what that was like, but still…was that really a reason to drop everything and return to London?

Logic had no impact on emotions, though, and Bond’s emotions had somehow become tangled up in Q ages ago. Truthfully, it had probably happened sometime before they had started having recreational sex, and somewhere closer to when Bond had seen Q passed out on his couch and realized he didn’t mind.

By the time Bond got to MI6, it was just after midnight, but he was still braced to face down Mallory. Even if the new head of MI6 strung him up and skinned him alive, Bond was determined to at least see Q first, if only to personally assure the smaller man of his continued life and that fact that he didn’t blame Q for any of it – not for Bond running back into danger, and not for the bomb that had nearly killed him and left him smelling like smoke and the burnt meat of unfortunate slavers.  007’s foes had actually saved him from most of the damage by taking the blast upon themselves…

~ _Come to carpark please – R_ ~ the text came in. 007 raised an eyebrow but obeyed, having no preference because Mallory would get to him eventually.

It was a surprise, therefore, when Bond immediately noticed R and two other minions that he vaguely recognized standing next to a nondescript black Camaro when he entered. They looked a bit nervous upon seeing him, but mostly, the Q-branchers merely looked exhausted, strained, and on their last physical and emotional legs – it showed in their shadowed eyes even in the poor lighting of the carpark.  “R,” Bond nodded, moving warily and instinctively hiding the limp he’d acquired in his last mission. 

“Q’s in the car,” blurted R, who was a nondescript little fellow with short, mouse-colored hair and a soft-looking face.  His round glasses magnified his eyes almost comically.  “He’s…well, he’s asleep.  Medical has been doping him up pretty heavily – something about too much strain already, and not having an ‘off’ switch.”

Impulsively, Bond snorted. “That sounds like Q.”

“Well, yes…” The three minions flashed nervous little smiles like they were surprised at the gentle humor from a 00-agent. “But…well…we figured that there’s nothing Medical could really do that you couldn’t, and…er… Here.”  R nudged a graciously figured little woman next to him, who immediately tiptoed forward to extend a bag towards 007, who took it politely but suspiciously.  “He leaves some changes of clothes – in Q-branch, that is.  Just in case of spills or mishaps during experiments and fixes and such. If you’re going to take him somewhere safe…”

It was surprising and…unexpectedly humbling…to realize that Q-branch not only trusted Bond but instinctively chose to believe that he was taking Q someplace safe to recover. Bond found himself speechless, and looked at the three tech analysts anew.  All three were small, and even the tallest one – R – was shorter than 007. They looked scholarly and nerdy, and until now, Bond wouldn’t have given them a second glance. Now he took the time to nod a slow and respectful nod, saying, “Thank you.  Q needs rest.  I think I know a better place for him to get it than in Medical.”

“Good,” R agreed in a clipped tone that was like a shadow of Q’s, making 007 itch to go to the car and see the dark-haired boffin.  “I think he needs it.  He…  These last few weeks, he’s shouldered things no one person should.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I thought so,” R nodded, shoulders sagging along with the man and woman on either side of him, almost in tandem.  “There are also vitamins and prescriptions from Medical in there.”

“I’ll make sure he takes them,” Bond assured, stepping around to the driver’s side – the keys were already in the ignition, keeping the vehicle warm. 

“He’s hates them,” the third member of the Q-branch trio supplied blithely.  His voice was surprisingly pleasant and musical for a fellow who looked like anyone’s favorite grandpa.  “And he hates being drugged to sleep like he is now, so he’ll be mad when he wakes up.”

“Did _you_ drug him or Medical?’ Bond had to ask, wondering if he’d underestimated these three.

However, the looks of absolute horror the tech analysts exchanged assured Bond that Q’s rule was absolute. They looked back and the agent and shook their heads in wild denial, talking over one another as they hurried to explain that Q had been given a soporific before bed to make sure that he actually _slept_ instead of trying to sneak out and do work.  That was entirely believable. 

Since R already had the number of 007’s current mobile phone, there was nothing more to talk about. Bond was just about to slip into the car when R stepped forward, face focused and serious again. “007, as of right now, no one outside of Q-branch is aware that you are here.  So long as it helps Q, that is how it will stay.”

Bond’s respect increased, although he also made a mental note not to mess with Q’s minions. “And I imagine that you’ll tell Mallory of my detour if you suspect anything amiss between myself and your Quartermaster?”

To his credit, R didn’t flinch, just fisted his hands and nodded.  “I hope that will not be necessary.  As it is…you still must return to your mission in a couple of days at most.”

“Understood,” James relented, having not expected a fraction of the leeway he was getting. With another quiet but sincere thank you that made the Q-branchers looked very pleased but also uncomfortable, Bond slipped into the car, immediately looking over to the passenger seat. As promised, there was Q, looking as though he were still miraculously wearing his normal, hideous clothing under a drab Medical blanket.  His glasses had slipped down his nose and he was completely out, but even asleep, his expression looked drawn – strained.  “Let’s get you somewhere that you can really sleep, Q,” Bond murmured, then shifted the car into gear and peeled out of MI6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look!! Bond got an exploding pen!! ^_^ And he's also sort of kidnapping his Quartermaster... But for the greater good!


	5. The Spaces Between your Ribs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or 'Something the Cat Dragged In.' Bond has Q back at the flat. Usually, it's the Quartermaster's job to bring him his broken, battered, exhausted charges, so now it's Bond turn to return the favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up for some pretty adorable semi-conscious-Q! And nightmaring Q :( The poor baby is in a bad way... But you guys get a tub-scene!

Q was indeed very drugged, but not entirely unconscious – he could sway and put one foot in front of the other with liberal coaxing and support, which was probably how R and his two comrades had gotten their boss from Medical to the car in the first place. Still, it was intensely odd to see Q like this, with his steps weaving and his head sagging limply so his glasses nearly fell off twice.  “Come on, Q,” Bond murmured soft encouragement, “Just a little further and you can fall wherever you please.”

Proving that he was not completely out of it, Q’s nose wrinkled as he slurred in bewilderment, “Bond?”

“You don’t have to put on such an offended tone,” the agent chided back in good fun, opening the door for both of them and then closing and locking it behind. “I never thought that the first time you entered my flat without breaking in would be under these circumstances,” he joked ironically. 

Q just murmured his name again, still sounding perplexed by it all.  The hand he had gripped on 007’s still-sooty button-down proved that he was aware of Bond’s continued presence at his side, however, holding him up. Eventually, with some evident effort, Q managed to cobble the words together to say, “Smell like ’n ashtray.”

“You’re all compliments,” muttered 007, but got the two of them to the bedroom, letting Q go onto the bed. It had enough blankets and comforters piled on it that Q may as well have toppled into a wrinkled, down-stuffed nest. Bond took a moment to just breathe and tell himself that he’d accomplished what his messed up heart had demanded of him to do: get Q someplace safe, where he was comfortable and where 007 could just keep an eye on him…for a bit.  For as long as he could. 

“You okay there, Q?” Bond asked, not really expecting an answer, but wanting somehow to connect with the wrecked Quartermaster.  He’d been in the flat before with Q unconscious, but this was somehow different – this wasn’t Q who’d broken in and fallen asleep, this was Q who’d worked so hard that he’d collapsed, and 007 had had to bring him home.

Ignoring the tricky use of the word ‘home,’ 007 took Q’s even breathing and more relaxed features as a good sign and got himself undressed, after removing Q’s glasses to avoid damage to them. He hadn’t even changed since getting off the plane, and before then, only the jacket, because he needed to hide how bashed up he was.  Q had been right in saying he didn’t exactly smell fresh.  By the time he’d stripped down to the waist, he knew that there was no avoiding a shower.  “Q.” He reached to where Q was half-curled on his side like a whippet swathed in blankets. 

This time, the Quartermaster’s eyes opened, if only to slits.  His eyes were so bloodshot that the irises looked positively green, and he squinted up with bleary confusion at Bond’s face.  “007? You’re…”

“Bruised all to hell and as dirty as a back alley?  Yeah. That’s why I need a shower,” Bond filled in smoothly when Q’s words got tangled up in his mouth. Without realizing he was doing it, Bond reached out to rub a hand across Q’s hair, smoothing down the tangles. The Quartermaster just blinked in response, and made no effort to squirm away.  “Do you know where you are?”

Dark brows lowered, and after a long moment, Q looked around him.  “…No.”

“We’re at my flat.” It took effort, but 007 stopped touching the younger man, straightening but not moving away yet. “R and your other minions know that we’re here, so you’re safe.”

As soon as Bond had said they were at the agent’s flat, however, Q’s expression had eased. He sank into the blankets as if becoming some kind of liquid, even as the last corner of the Medical blanket slipped off to lie neglected on the floor.  Q looked skinnier than usual beneath his cardigan and slacks. “Hmm,” Q hummed, still frowning but looking otherwise untroubled, “Go shower.”

Not needing to be told twice – and as used to following the Quartermaster’s orders as the minions were, probably – 007 left the room and dove into just about the quickest shower of his life.  It was thorough, because he was sick of the smell of death, smoke, and sweat.  He scrubbed it viciously out of his skin, only being careful around the smattering of cuts he’d picked up.  He was so eager to get back to where he’d left Q that he barely paused to bandage up the worst of them. 

Q hadn’t moved, but appeared sincerely asleep rather than merely drugged unconscious.  That didn’t mean he wasn’t supple and limp, and moving him was not unlike trying to move an uncooperative cat.  Q wriggled around a bit eventually, rousing, but that was more hindrance than help.  Eventually, however, Bond got the two of them settled: 007 had been too tired himself to pull on anything but his pants, and he ached everywhere, but somehow he still relaxed to the corners of his very soul when he got Q leaned up against him under the blankets.

“How did we get here, Q?” Bond asked under his breath, a defeated sound, as if the words were being carved out from the spaces in between his ribs.  He glanced to his bedmate, but Q was quite asleep – being moved had barely woken him. Feeling an irksome mix of contented and absolutely horrible (because he’d essentially kidnapped the Quartermaster and left R to deal with it), 007 tried then to stare at everything else in the room and get his thoughts in a row. 

It didn’t work, but he did fall asleep, propped against the headboard with an arm around Q’s shoulders, feeling gentle breathing against his chest.  Once again a set of glasses rested on the bedside table alongside his Walther.

~^~

The first night proved why 007 was right to return – the least of Q’s problems were medical, and sometimes the experience of men like Bond served better than the cold, distant training of those from Psych. 

Q thrashed and twisted and cried out in his sleep.  He barely had the energy to open his eyes, but he could struggle so furiously that it took a considerable amount of 007’s strength to hold him down. In between desperate frustrated snarls and shouts, tears would leak past Q’s lashes, although Bond was willing to attribute that to exhaustion as much as emotion. Bond also knew a thing or two about nightmares, and it didn’t take a genius to deduce that Q was reliving bits and snatches of missions – probably the most recent ones, because some of the snatches of things that Q said were familiar to Bond, thanks to the careful tidbits of information that R had been feeding him via text.

When Q cried out for Bond, the agent pulled Q close and the fit would slowly come to and end. “I’m here, Q.  Always here,” James soothed, ignoring the bruises in his chest and torso as Q pressed against them, breathing fast under the agent’s neck, “You’re always in my ear, so let me be the voice in yours.”

“I killed you,” Q gasped out, too strong still to sob.  He shuddered and seemed to come closer to awareness as his long fingers felt the strength of muscle wrapped around the arms he gripped. 

“No, you didn’t,” rumbled Bond stubbornly and calmly.  He eased back against the pillows again, drawing Q along without any struggling. Already, Q’s muscles were quivering and ready to give out again, which would hopefully let him sleep. Until then, he seemed willing to grab onto anything nearby with all the strength he had.  If 007 hadn’t seen how fit Q was (against the punching bag or in bed), it would have shocked him.  As it was, Q was painfully thin, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept or eaten since Bond had last seen him. 

It was a mercy when Q drifted off to sleep again, now half-curled of his own volition onto Bond’s chest, ear against his heart. 

When next Q woke, it was somewhere near noon, and a few brief texts had long-since informed Bond that Q’s absence had been noticed.  Apparently R was playing it off as Q dismissing himself to go home, and he might have threatened to ruin the credit scores of a few of the Medical staff to get the story across.  Bond was also starving, and had left the room to microwave soup when Q was in deepest sleep. He’d found that if he left for more than a few minutes, though, the Quartermaster would start to thrash and cry out, and it would take much talking and touching to convince him to sleep again.

Q could be coaxed to drink and eat in small amounts, and even take the vitamins supplied by Medical; Bond regained some of his own strength in the meanwhile, ordering in and resting for the first day.  He was well aware, even without R’s sporadic messages, that his time in London was limited, but he was determined to make the most of it. 

“Come on, Q, you’re starting to smell like something the cat dragged in,” Bond admonished pleasantly, keeping Q upright only by holding onto him and walking backwards with him in slow, shuffling steps.  James had already drawn a bath, and now all that remained to be seen was whether Q would be all that awake for it. 

Q’s eyes snapped open as soon as he was helped into the water, already undressed and almost sitting down. The delayed response was a bit hilarious despite the circumstances, and Bond stifled a chuckle even as he tightened his grip to make sure the smaller man didn’t slip when he jerked in surprise. “Where are my glasses?” was the first coherent demand through Q’s lips since Bond had stolen him away from MI6. While Bond hushed him and assured the Quartermaster that his precious spectacles were safe, he also pushed Q back a bit further, until he was lying back against the edge of the tub, warm water covering everything but his head and shoulders and knobby, shifting knees.

Still disoriented (although he’d forgotten his first topic of questioning), Q’s head jerked around, squinting at the tub and bathroom but only focusing when they came with confusion to Bond’s face.  It was such an uncertain look for such a perpetually certain man that something tore in Bond’s chest. The moment hung in temporary silence except for the occasional ripples of the water, with Bond kneeling in preternatural stillness next to the tub. 

Q looked so young and open like this, his eyes huge without glasses to hide them. Likewise, Q himself looked raw without his usual armor and calm, which was for the first time in 007’s memory all gone.  The biggest wound Q had right now wasn’t physical, and it wasn’t even entirely emotional – it was the fact that all of his protection had been stripped away, leaving him like a raw nerve or unarmored knight.  If Q was the latter, then Bond should have been a dragon, yet Q reached out to him slowly instead of drawing back in self-defense. 

“Join me? Please?” asked Q in the most contrite voice Bond had ever heard.  It sounded so wrong in his mouth that Bond couldn’t stop his frown, although he immediately made up for the expression by leaning his head forward and into Q’s reaching hand.

Blue eyes unblinkingly on dazed hazel ones, Q’s palm against his check, James said, “Anything, Q.”

Bond really hadn’t bothered to dress any more since first focusing on Q’s care, so it was but the work of a moment to slip out of his pants and be as clothed as Q. As the agent stood, Q’s short range of vision lost the ability to focus, so he blinked fuzzily as he followed James up. With the impeccable balance and the smooth power of a lion, 007 stepped into the tub, looking down at Q’s exhausted, lean frame.  Without clothing on, Q’s ribs were visible, the way they showed a bit too much beneath his skin, along with the angles of his elbows and shoulders.  Like bird wings folding, Q moved a bit as Bond sat down, straddling the smaller man for an intense moment before reaching forward, taking Q’s forearms, and drawing him forward.  Soon Bond had arranged them similarly to how they’d been in the bed, only now Q reclined between his legs, warm water all around them and Q letting out a shuddering breath of relief as he made himself comfortable.

“I keep forgetting that you’re alive,” whispered the smaller man, head tucked for a moment before he nuzzled it up under 007’s chin.  The agent tipped his head obligingly, shifting his legs to keep his companion cradled. “When the others are dead.”

Cupping water in his hands, 007 wet down Q’s hair.  “I’ll do my best to remain unforgettable,” he assured stalwartly and in all seriousness as he reached for the soap.  With gentleness counter to his strength, he lathered it up on Q’s skin, starting at his shoulders and then just letting his hand stroke of its own accord up the back of Q’s neck.  The Quartermaster shivered and sighed as scarred fingers worked their way into his wet hair.

“We at your flat?” Q asked a few moments later in slurred curiosity.  One of his hands paddled sleepily in the water, but only floated free for a moment before returning to trace the outer edges of one of the bruises on Bond’s side.  It twinged, but like most of Bond’s other wounds (some still wrapped in bandages that were now getting soaked), the agent was more than able to ignore it if the touching kept Q calm. 

When Bond answered in the affirmative and set about rinsing the suds slowly out of Q’s tangled dark hair, Q scrunched up his nose and asked, “How in _hell_ did I get here?”

Bond’s chuckle shook the water, and his bruises twinged as Q reflexively clutched at him tighter, but 007 still felt his mood lifting at this flicker of normal attitude from his Quartermaster.  Running his fingers back through Q’s hair (which was free of suds and didn’t need the extra attention, but got it anyway), Bond replied past a crooked smile, “Let’s just say I might be arrested for insubordinate behavior, abandonment of my post, and kidnapping by the end of the week.”  Q was going slack on top of him, drowsiness clearly overcoming all else yet again, but he was in no danger of drowning with a 00-agent wrapped around him. “But on the plus-side, I made friends with some of your minions.” 

Taking advantage of how relaxed Q was in the tub with him – considering that they’d had sex numerous times, this was hardly inappropriate, Bond figured – James continued to leisurely wash Q’s skin, moving him as little as possible and murmuring to him soothingly when he did.  Even now, having just talked coherently with Bond a few minutes ago, Q would suddenly tense and clench his jaw, his wearied mind forgetting where it was.  The Quartermaster was a _wreck_ , but the quietest word or gentlest touch from James worked wonders to bring him out of it. 

Sometimes Q would still curl up, crying silently, against his agent’s chest, but always Bond waited for the episode patiently to pass. 

He’d gone through moments like these.  In those two weeks after M’s death, when he’d been in the wind, 007 had been in a wasteland of his own mind just like Q was.  Thinking back, he could still remember the bitter edges of the pain, the wild hurt as he thought about what he couldn’t have done differently – how he could have _saved her_ – and the way sleep became the enemy. Daylight drove away monsters, but in sleep, you could get so tangled up in them that you thought you _were_ one.  The only reason Bond had toughed it out alone was thanks to copious amounts of booze, and the fact that all 00-agents were liberally exposed to emotional trauma over their careers.  Q was new to it, so now Bond wanted to help in any way he could, with a layer of understanding that Psych couldn’t have. 

~^~

By the second day, Bond knew that he couldn’t stay, but he knew that Q wasn’t ready to be on his own yet – and taking him back to MI6 would be like rubbing salt into a wound. He immediately began casting about for other options, even as he lay awake in bed, Q tucked against his front, dressed in borrowed clothes that swamped him.  007 had gotten him to eat, but it had been like feeding a sleepwalker. 007 let his hand wander slowly up and down Q’s back, smoothing the soft material of the black tee Q was in now. If he stopped, he knew that Q would soon start slipping into a nightmare – which made sleeping for _both_ of them difficult, but Bond snatched enough sleep that he didn’t complain.  Bond counted time with the exhales of Q’s breath against the front of his own nightshirt, and was attentive to Q’s hands on his shirt-front.  They’d clench and tug if he started to dream.

Faced with the knowledge that he couldn’t just ignore his mission indefinitely and yet also couldn’t leave Q alone, Bond’s mind worked overtime.  If it were just a matter of temporarily ditching MI6, he probably would have done it at the drop of a hat – Bond was loyal, but he was also an independent thinker, and he’d already decided that Q getting back on his feet was top priority.  However, if he abandoned this mission and went AWOL, then that slave ring would be up and running again by the end of the month.  All actions had consequences.  Besides that, his insubordination would undermine Mallory’s control over MI6, which was the last thing a weakened MI6 needed right now. 

All in all, Bond had resigned himself to the fact that he would be back out in the field in just a day or two. 

Finally, he narrowed it down to just one viable option, and 007 pushed aside his better judgment pulled out a phone – not his, but Q’s, which had been sent along with medication from Medical.  He looked at it for a moment before sighing and leaning forward to press his lips against Q’s forehead, sure it wouldn’t be enough to wake him.  Q should probably sleep for a week straight, what with the condition he’d put himself in, if he could just keep the nightmares at bay.  “It’s going to be all right, Q,” he murmured without breaking contact, “There’s just going to be a change of scenery.”

Asleep or not, Q’s mouth turned down at the edges and his brow beetled like he had a bad taste in his mouth.  The innate response of grouchiness made 007 relax a little, but he remained tense as he rolled out of bed and walked to the living room to make a call.

~^~

“You did that on purpose, Sherlock, and it is _not_ going to get you out of cooking from now on,” John’s shout rang throughout the flat, unimpressed and also decidedly un-amused.

Sherlock stopped cataloguing the non-food items in the refrigerator to argue back logically, “Please consider, John, that when _you_ cook, no one gets food-poisoning-”

“No, nononono – you _poisoned_ the _food_ ,” interjected the smaller man stridently, appearing in the kitchen, “On purpose.  I might not be the genius you are, Sherlock, but I am a doctor.  The one thing I know is natural sicknesses, and that was not natural.” John paused his rant long enough to frown and then explode, “Who purposefully adds poison to food to get out of cooking?”

“Fine then,” Sherlock switched tactics to agree primly and unrepentantly, aware that he’d been caught. He unfolded his tall frame to a standing position and straightened out his shirt with an economical little jerk, “If I did, indeed, poison the food, you must agree that cooking is safest when left in your hands.”

Realizing that he’d walked in to that (and there was honestly no other way it could go when Sherlock was this determined not to be made to cook), John sighed and looked at the ceiling for guidance.  None had ever come from there, of course, but he held onto hope.  “Takeaway it is then.  Again.” Resigning himself for the millionth time to the unique form of insanity that was sharing a flat with Sherlock, John turned to leave the kitchen again, tossing back, “Not like we had any cookable materials here anyway.”

At long last, Sherlock turned to really look at John’s retreating back, appearing confused as he was hit by the sharper tone.  “John?”

“You heard me, Sherlock. Now if you make me be the one to call for takeaway, then I _will_ be mad,” John pointed an imperious finger at the other man’s phone while purposefully sitting down on the couch and picking up the paper.  He kept a judgmental eye on his flatmate, knowing that shaming Sherlock into doing things was sometimes the only thing to do. 

Before Sherlock could either argue or give in as he realized that he’d really annoyed his friend this time with the (only slightly malevolent) poisoning, the very phone John was pointing to began ringing.  By the way Sherlock’s eyes narrowed suddenly, even John could deduce that the consulting detective was not expecting a call.  Still, Sherlock sprang across the room with alacrity, scooping it up with a delighted look as if this were just the sort of distraction he needed. John sat forward and braced himself for a long night of detective work (they’d grab something along the winding way, hopefully), when Sherlock’s expression suddenly changed entirely, going from smug with anticipation of a good chase…to closed off, wary, and oddly hopeful…at whatever he saw on the caller ID.  “Yes,” was all he answered as he brought it to his ear.

“Who is it, Sherlock?” As John asked, the taller man was already steering towards his own room where John wouldn’t be able to effectively hear him or morally eavesdrop (the latter being a problem only John had, not Sherlock). A second later, though, Sherlock froze – no, he _stumbled_. Sherlock, who usually had amazingly impeccable control of his long and gangly-looking limbs. Instead of continuing to slink away, he half-turned, and John was surprised to see a nearly homicidal look on Sherlock’s face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q is a cat and cats are liquids. Give them somewhere soft, fluffy, and _safe_ and they'll become a puddle of sleepy adorable. Too bad 007 couldn't just stay in bed with him forever.
> 
> I'm sure that John and Sherlock will just looooove to be dragged into this, though ;)


	6. Lethal and Loyal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MI6 and 221B Baker Street collide. Fortunately, Q sleeps through most of it. Mostly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha This chapter was a riot to write - hopefully you enjoy it! I continue to have fun learning my way around new characters, as I dip my toes into the 'Sherlock' fandom.
> 
> This chapter was almost titled "Morally Compromised Guard-dog," if anyone needs a laugh..

“Who is this and where did you get this phone?” Sherlock asked in a voice so low it almost seemed to vibrate in the air, full of dormant threat.  At some point, without consciously deciding to, John had stood, and his memory told him immediately where his gun was – nearby.  Sherlock’s memory was eidetic for nearly anything that he deemed even vaguely useful, but John’s was just as useful on a smaller scale, such as regarding the location of firearms, the time of appointments, and just where Sherlock was when a particularly reactive experiment was boiling on the stove. 

“My name is Bond. James Bond.  And your brother is fine, relatively speaking,” a smooth, cock-sure voice rolled into Sherlock’s ear.  It was utterly unthreatening, but also a kind of self-assured that wasn’t common. Mycroft, of course, could pull off that level of contained confidence, but he also had a large portion of the British government under his thumb. 

Sherlock turned his tone flat, calculating as fast as he could how many people and in what lifestyles were likely to match this man’s tone and demeanor.  His accent denoted British and was too natural to be fake. “Define relatively.”

“Sherlock.” John was at his elbow, looking a mixture of worried and defensive.  That reminded Sherlock that looks could be deceiving – John wouldn’t fit any of the criteria for a dangerous person that Sherlock was building in his head, and yet Sherlock would readily admit that John was one of the most dangerous people he knew, so this caller could be an outlier as well.  The detective pushed aside his deductions but kept moving through possibilities, fractioning out his brainpower to start over again, much in the same way that he knew his younger brother could do with computer programs and Mycroft with people.

The man on the other end of the phone continued non-confrontationally despite the acid slipping into Sherlock’s tone, although it sounded a mite strained, “Look, I know that you’re Q’s brother, Mr. Holmes.  Furthermore, I know what you do and where you live.  I have no intention of using that information against you, however.” There was a considering pause, and then a refreshingly candid answer, “Unless I was ever ordered to, of course. But for the foreseeable future, we are very much on the same team.”

“That does not explain what you want or how you got hold of my brother’s mobile phone,” Sherlock bit out the words with efficient and cold brutality.  He walled away emotions effectively, although this was more difficult than usual.  It was much like when Moriarty had taken John…  Sherlock pressed his eyes closed, trying and failing to delete the information that still hurt him even to this day.

“Sherlock, _what_ is going on?!” John abruptly circled around to stand in Sherlock’s line of vision, simultaneously grabbing the forearm of the limb not rigidly holding the mobile phone.  “Is Mycroft in trouble?”

“Don’t be daft, John, this isn’t Mycroft,” Sherlock spat automatically, still trying to deduce faster than data came his way.

“But you said brother-”

“Just let me _think_!”

“You can tell your flatmate John what’s going on,” returned the low and controlled voice, which waited patiently as if for Sherlock to process the information that this James Bond character also had on his living arrangements.  “I imagine he’ll know before long anyway, and I’m in a bit of a rush myself.”

Sherlock was very rarely out of sorts, and to be honest, hated it when he was.  In childhood, he’d lost his temper all the time, and with it his control of many, many situations.  He still got frustrated swiftly with witless people (which was the majority of the populace), but very rarely did that flash of temper last long enough or burn deeply enough to actually affect his mental capacity. Now, though, he found emotions impinging maddeningly on his thoughts – there was too much influx with too little data in it.  To block off some of that, Sherlock snaked forward his free hand and pressed it over John’s mouth. The army doctor shook free quickly enough, of course, with an outraged glare, but also stopped talking. The silence of the flat allowed Sherlock to breathe and to focus again, and he took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

“What _you_ want, I hope.  Q is ill, and he needs safe people with which to recover.”

~^~

“I swear, Sherlock, if you don’t sit down and explain to me what the hell is going on, I’m going to throw you out a window.”

John’s threats were most usually insincere, at least so far as ones that directly threatened Sherlock’s person.  It was a delightful paradox: whenever John threatened other people with bodily harm, he seemed capable of carrying it through even unto death, like a particularly lethal and loyal Golden Retriever, but Sherlock only got the occasional punch in the face. John sounded worrisomely close to reaching ‘punching level’ on his anger scale, however… 

Explanation might be the best option, especially since James Bond was scheduled to arrive with the youngest Holmes brother in under an hour. 

Taking a deep breath as he prepared to explain the simple to the ignorant masses, Sherlock halted his pacing and spun on a heel to face John.  “Simply put, Mycroft and I are in possession of a third brother. You’ve been hitherto unaware of him because he lives a complicated life.”

John’s eyes had gone wide, but he was taking it rather better than most would have. “What do you mean by complicated?” he chose to ask, of all the questions Sherlock could practically _see_ dancing behind his eyes. 

“He’s the Quartermaster of MI6, which necessitates a certain distance from society and family,” Sherlock answered, keeping the explanation blunt and simple purely for the shock value, and not being disappointed as John almost physically jumped and then gave his head a little shake.  Sherlock was proud that he knew the look and the mannerisms: John was trying to deny the information.  Sherlock headed him off at the pass by continuing swiftly, “Come now, John, surely it’s not that unbelievable.  Mycroft has his hands elbow deep in the business of ninety percent of the political populace, and I myself am a famous consulting detective with an unheard-of success rate.”

“Your humility is mind-blowing, as always, Sherlock,” said John in a familiar despairing tone, which frankly confused his flatmate.  Did John honestly think that that would change?  “Fine, point taken.  The lot of you are bloody gifted.  What’s your third brother’s name?  And what does he have to do with that phone call?”

“Quintus, the youngest Holmes,” Sherlock answered with his usual flair, tone dropping just enough to be dramatic even as he flopped down onto the couch. John was presently sitting on the far end of it, and he had to shuffle to avoid the taller man’s feet; his little glower was halfhearted at best, and Sherlock wasn’t looking anyway. He was staring at the ceiling, following the little flaws and patterns in the tiling like a well-worn path to center his thoughts, which had calmed significantly since he’d hung up the phone. “He appears to have fallen into the company of a fellow named James Bond.”  He tasted the name, then made a face as he disliked it.  They hadn’t gotten on while on the phone, and he doubted that would change.  If Q liked the man, that would make matters…difficult.  Sherlock finished blithely as the string of explanations began to bore him, “I suspect he’s an agent of MI6, if his speech and temperament via the phone was anything to go by, but he’s concerned about Q’s health after a certain…incident. He didn’t elaborate, but I’m suspecting some trauma from a mission gone wrong.”

John was doing the thing where he stared and blinked again, and Sherlock waited for his mind to catch up. Sherlock waited for few people, but he waited for John, because often, the unassuming army doctor had interesting things to say when his slower mind got up to speed.  This wasn’t one of those times, but Sherlock wasn’t offended as John eventually hazarded, “He told you that?”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock scoffed.  “All he said was that Q was ill, and he needed trusted people nearby while he recovered. But some things are so obvious that they may as well be spelled out in neon.”  Still staring at the ceiling, he moved to stretch out, then remembered John was in the way when the doctor swatted at his shin.  Putting on a hurt expression, Sherlock bent his knees again. “Quintus has always been a very careful person, so he wouldn’t have gone and hurt himself – not physically, at least – and if MI6 has the brain capacity greater than a small cactus, they’ll be smart enough not to send their Quartermaster into dangerous situations either. So this is most likely not a physical trauma.”  Steepling his fingers and tapping them against his lips, Sherlock dug deeper into the puzzle, using deductions and a sea of logic to distance himself from the fact that this was his brother he was thinking about, whom he hadn’t seen in a good three years.  “Unless I’m wildly misjudging Bond’s place in MI6, he’s little more than a peon in the rankings, so the fact that it’s him calling instead of the head of MI6 – and on Quintus’s phone instead of some government channel-”

“You think that this is happening under the radar?” John guessed.  Sherlock flashed him a smile as the doctor proved that he _could_ keep up with the detective, if only from time to time.  

“Precisely. And they’re due to arrive here in under twenty minutes now, less than that if-”

“Sherlock!” came Mrs. Hudson’s uncertain voice, “Were you expecting company?  There are two men here – a very _charming_ fellow, and-”

The detective finished his sentence definitively, “-Traffic is good and Mr. Bond drives like a maniac.” He rolled off the couch and to his feet like a long-limbed cat, already shouting commandingly, “Let them up, Mrs. Hudson. And do put some tea on.”

“Not your housekeeper, dear!”

“I’ll put the tea on,” John muttered with a roll of his eyes as he slipped past Sherlock, acting normal even as the briskness of his step and the set of his shoulders gave him away: he was tense and ready for trouble, unsure what this meeting would bring. Sherlock approved of his flatmate’s caution.

~^~

Q’s eyes were closed and he was leaning enough that Bond knew that the Quartermaster would fall straight to the floor if he so much as took a step away.  Still, it was more conscious than Q had been for ages, and he looked more like a sleepy drunk than a seriously traumatized and sort-of-kidnapped government agent.  Keeping a firm arm around Q’s shoulders and guiding his steps easily, Bond entered 221B and finally met the infamous Sherlock Holmes: consulting detective, genius, and all around pain in the arse to anyone who made the mistake of thinking he had manners like a normal human being.  Just from asking around, 007 had gotten a pretty good feel for his character, including the fact that his flatmate, John Watson, did a miraculous job of blunting Sherlock’s sharper edges to the world. 

Said flatmate stepped out of the kitchen just as Bond and Sherlock were facing each other like roosters across the living room.  Bond’s eyes flicked over him, reflexively taking his measure and holding what he saw against what he’d gathered with the full vastness of his espionage skills. Especially compared to Sherlock with his imposing height and haughty air, John didn’t look like much, but his eyes were competent and his record was enough on its own to earn Bond’s respect.

“I was going to say that there was tea but…”  John’s eyes had slipped once from Bond’s shoes to the crown of his head before seemingly drawn by magnetism to the slimmer man flush to James’s side – clearly, John Watson was a doctor through and through.  “Maybe we want to get your brother lying down first, eh, Sherlock?” John finished in a polite but clearly cautious tone.  Bond instantly took a liking to him. 

Sherlock was another matter. The tall man had Q’s crazy mass of dark hair and his high cheekbones, but was considerably taller – he was an eagle to Q’s kestrel, both intense but in differently sized packages. Right now, those intense eyes were narrowed at Bond with very evident dislike.  “How about introductions first?” Sherlock said in a deep tone like a bell, but it was the sinuous ring of cunning underlying the tone that had 007 tensing up.  Never blinking or turning away from Bond, Sherlock spoke before anyone could really interrupt him, “John, meet James Bond, 00-agent of MI6.  Quite a killer, unless I’ve misjudged you already – which I rarely do.”

Surprise flashed through Bond’s veins like he’d had ice-water injected into them. His blue eyes actually widened. The self-assuredness in Sherlock’s voice wasn’t empty bravado, but cold certainty wielded like a knife, and despite what he’d gathered about the consulting detective’s deductive skills…it was unsettling.  John looked shocked as well, but in a different fashion, and the way he suddenly grit his teeth and shifted his weight was entirely militant.  He was preparing for danger and sizing up the situation as training had taught him in Afghanistan. 

“Sherlock…” Q’s little growl was more of a mewl, but it managed to grab everyone’s attention as if he’d thrown out boat-hooks. Still standing only at 007’s sufferance, head sagging so that the collar of the longcoat he’d been bundled up in swallowed his face up to ears, Q continued with an effort of concentration, “Stop being a bloody berk.”  While Sherlock stopped and blinked with an affronted look all over his face, Q raised a hand and dug his fingers into Bond’s shirt, past his unzipped leather jacket. Bond found his attention zeroing in on the pressure just above his chest almost against his own will, and Q hadn’t even roused enough to lift his head.  The room was quiet, as if everyone else were straining for something more, too. With groggy temper, the ill Quartermaster finished, “…Same goes for you.” 

It was actually Sherlock who recovered first, clearing his throat and looking away as if embarrassed or at least uncomfortable.  “Far be it from me to question the Quartermaster of MI6,” he sniffed with a little glower at nothing to his left.  John huffed and rolled his eyes while Sherlock cut his own gaze back to a warily watching 007 to add, “Or his morally compromised guard-dog.”

Before Bond could demand to know just what the hell Sherlock meant by that, John finally approached, inserting himself between the two dominant (and clashing) personalities in the room on the pretense of seeing Q.  “He didn’t mean it – ignore him,” said the smaller, milder man to Bond with a flash of a well-worn smile.  His eyes, when they met Bond’s crystalline ones, were frank and sincere. “And if this is Sherlock’s brother Quintus, and you’re a friend of his, you’re welcome here.”

Sherlock snorted in loud derision, but was utterly ignored.

“I’m grateful,” Bond returned the niceties.  It felt good to slip back into the façade of a gentleman, where he could interact with people behind a veil of politeness and cool manners.  It had slipped a bit earlier, he feared, but he blamed that on Sherlock for tossing Bond’s 00-status into the open.  “Quintus needs friends around him right now, and I won’t be able to watch him for much longer.  This was the only other option I could think of.”

The doctor’s eyes were already looking Q ( _Quintus_ , apparently, although that had been he one piece of information that Bond hadn’t actually found yet, ironically – sometimes, the most obvious things were the most deeply hidden) over intently, frowning at his pallor and apparent lack of alertness.  “And not a hospital?” John asked with heavy suspicion.

Bond shook his head. “He was in MI6’s medical care for a bit, but from what I’ve been told, they could only treat him physically – mentally, he needs something more familiar and less clinical.”

“And what did they treat him for physically?”

“Exhaustion and malnutrition,” Bond answered, and was surprised when Sherlock broke in – his tone notably less confrontational than before, as if he were making an effort to play nice now that the topic centered around his younger brother’s fragile health.

“Quintus has always had a habit of working himself to the bone.  Even as a child, it rather drove everyone to distraction.  I imagine it has only gotten worse now that he has a labor-intensive job to encourage his already insane work-habits.” Beneath the disdain in Sherlock’s voice was worry, and the way he kept watching Q now belied the haughty expression he was holding onto imperfectly.  Perhaps Sherlock could deduce things in seconds that would take spies months to discover, but he couldn’t hold onto a mask nearly as well.

“He also had some people…die on his watch,” Bond handled the topic with care while watching John’s face keenly, seeking a glimmer of understanding.  He found it rather quickly as John tensed and then let out a slow breath through his nose.  So, the army doctor understood such losses.  “His physical condition is poor but salvageable, but it’s the nightmares I don’t trust a hospital to treat.”

“I’ll set him up in Sherlock’s room,” the doctor said without further argument.

That got the elder Holmes’s attention, and his head snapped up to stare at John with a comical, wide-eyed look.  “ _My_ room?”

“Your brother – your room.”

“What about the couch?” Sherlock protested in a voice sounding perilously close to a whine. “Surely, John, it would be just as easy-”

“You do _not_ want to argue with me on this, Sherlock,” was the imperious answer from the smaller man, as he turned to give his flatmate a _look_ , “I might be convinced to go against my better judgment and not take your brother to a hospital, but I’m not banishing him to our dusty old couch.”

“Oh, so you’ll coddle the estranged brother you’ve never even met, but you’ll banish me to-!”

Q moved then, shuffling his feet and making another feline sort of growling noise, forcing Bond to use both arms to grab and hold him up.  With barely a fight, Q folded into him, although he muttered out slurred words with warm lips against Bond’s collarbone, “ ’M right here.  Stop bloody talking over my ’ead…”

“Shhhh, Q.” The soft sounds poured out of James without prompting, as did the unstoppable urge to touch the smaller man, which he indulged in by pressing his lips against the mop of dark tangles Q called hair.  “It’s all fine.”

“Bloody Sherlock.”

“Better than nothing,” 007 gently amended, and didn’t look up to see what kind of glare he was getting from the consulting detective for that – or what looks he was getting from either of them for how intimately he was treating Quintus Holmes. “I’ve got to leave for a few days, Q, and I think you need people who care around you.”  Still holding Q against him so that the weakened Quartermaster could stand without effort, 007 breathed him in, something primal and contented purring at the mixed scent of Q’s skin and James’s clothes. “I’ll be back.”

There was no answer, and an awkward silence stretched until John shuffled his feet, still poised halfway between the group of them and Sherlock’s bedroom.  “He out again?”

Reluctantly pulling back just a bit (still holding Q up but no longer in such a clearly compromising fashion), 007 nodded, “He’s already slept for nearly three days straight, although some of that was before I took him to my place.  I’m told his rest was intermittent before that, unless he was drugged.”

“Normal sleep is always better,” John said as if repeating a well-known maxim, and continued on his way while calling back over his shoulder, “Just bring him in. Sherlock, you cleaned recently, yeah?”

There was the sound of feet jump-starting themselves against the carpet – Sherlock, belatedly pulling himself out of whatever offended shock he’d fallen into, following the other three as they marched towards his room.  “Of course I cleaned!  I always clean!”

He was lying, of course, but John wasn’t surprised and Bond was more amused than anything else. Soon Q was settled and 007 left, assured that he’d left him in the safest place he could.  From what 007 had gathered in the time he’d just spent with them, Sherlock was something of an unpredictable force of nature – just as Q could be – but he clearly cared.  If Sherlock’s deep but well-hidden worry for his little brother wasn’t enough, Bond at least trusted Sherlock’s flatmate to step in.  The fact that one of the two was medically trained was a very pleasant bonus.

One thought always still on Q like a golden thread spun out behind him to 221B Baker Street, 007 picked up his phone and called R.  He needed a plane ticket. “Anything going the right way. I’m already headed to the airport. The sooner I get moving, the sooner this is done,” the agent said in a voice as low and threatening as blood-warmed steel from a well-used knife.  His car started with a ready purr. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not, Bond and Q won't be separated for long! John and Sherlock might be on babysitting duty for awhile, but you know me - I'll get Q's agent back to him in a jiffy ;3


	7. Emotions are Messy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q is now someplace safe where he can rest and recover.
> 
> Translation: 221B is now under siege by _feelings_ , and Sherlock doesn't know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that Bond doesn't turn up in this chapter except in reference - hopefully you guys can be happy with just Q, Sherlock, and John for a chapter ;) Bond will return in the next one, never fear.

“John – John! He’s doing it again.” Sherlock had been unabashedly standing in the hallway, his head poking into his borrowed room as if a force-field held him back while a magnet pulled him in at the same time. That magnet was probably attached to his curiosity while the force-field stemmed from the fact that Sherlock hated feelings, and anything to do with his sick youngest brother invariably involved a lot of feelings.

From where he’d been trying to put away the groceries he’d just run out and bought (groceries that included some easy, fast meals that someone suffering from malnutrition and severe exhaustion could be coaxed into eating without getting sick), John withheld a frustrated noise, put the jug of milk down, and followed Sherlock’s voice. “Nightmares again?”

“How should I know?” Sherlock retorted in his petulant voice, the one that said he didn’t perfectly understand something, realized that he probably never would, and thus was royally upset over it.  “I’m not in his head.”

John had already looked past around Sherlock’s elbow, and made his own deductions in far less time. He sighed, “Yes, he’s having a nightmare.  Really, Sherlock, it’s not that hard to tell.”

“People do odd things in their sleep, not all of them related to subconscious terrors.”

“Go in their and sit with him. It worked last time to calm him down, and he still needs sleep.”

Sherlock’s eyes finally whipped away from his brother’s weakly thrashing shape beneath the blankets, casting a scandalized look John’s way.  “Now?”

“Yes. Now.  As in, while I finish putting away groceries. You know, because we’ve already established that you can’t be allowed to touch the food.”

Mouth opening and then closing when he realized that he’d actually been outmaneuvered, Sherlock glanced between his brother and his flatmate with a look very like trepidation. “I’m not…  John.  It should really be _you_ doing this,” Sherlock forced the words out, his usual articulateness failing him as he made a face and pressed his full lips together.  He said more somberly, “You’re the empathic one, the one who best understands personal matters where feelings are involved, such as fear and sadness.”

John’s expression softened as he looked at the clearly torn expression on Sherlock’s face as he watched his brother suffer.  Hand gentle, he gave his taller flatmate a little push, which was just strong enough to make him yelp and stumble through the door.  “Yeah, but you’re his brother, Sherlock.  Just go pat his back and talk to him.  I’ll be along in just a sec.”

It really did pull at John’s professional instincts to keep Quintus here rather than admitting him to the hospital, but he couldn’t help but concede that Bond’s assessment of the situation was right: physically, Quintus could be treated by John here as well as anywhere else, and John knew personally that hospitals rarely fixed nightmares.  They’d only been watching Q (both Bond and now Sherlock called him that now) since the morning, and it was now sinking into late evening.  In that time, Q had slept in fits and spurts that were broken by sharp cries and thrashing whenever he was left alone for long.  John wished he didn’t know what Q was going through, but after his return to London after the war… 

Putting away the last of the groceries, John went to relieve Sherlock, hoping that the elder Holmes’s allergy to emotions hadn’t made the situation any worse.

~^~

Emotions were messy. They were messy, and Sherlock hated them, because the majority of them were next to impossible to predict. Lusts for vengeance and fear connected to simple, clear stimuli he understood, but that was a minor faction in a whole seething nest of feelings, and Sherlock had ceased to suffer from nightmares back when he was a child.  Last he’d known, so had Mycroft and Quintus, although neither of them had the level of mental efficiency that had allowed Sherlock to compartmentalize even his sleeping self.  If Mycroft and Quintus hadn’t parted on such bad terms, and if it didn’t feel a lot like crying for help, Sherlock would have been tempted to call Mycroft.

Instead, Sherlock gripped his trust in John’s judgment firmly and sat down on the bed, where Quintus looked as small as he always had – not only the youngest but also doomed to forever be the least physically intimidating.  Mycroft had unwisely dared to call Quintus ‘the runt of the litter’ once.  A seven-year-old Quintus had rigged the microwave to blow up exactly when his eldest brother next used it, spewing the contents of a thankfully unheated bowl of soup all over Mycroft’s nice clothes.  Sherlock had always been fond of the swiftness of his younger brother’s retaliation (so long as he wasn’t at the receiving end). 

Quintus’s back was to him, eyes squeezed shut and breathing twenty-five percent faster than normal. He’d curled up, but kicked occasionally, mumbling things that probably shouldn’t be said in the company of random hospital staff anyway.  Sherlock had already learned a rather dangerous amount about MI6, now that his baby brother was hemorrhaging information.  Sherlock was still mulling over the few reasons that could have driven a seemingly loyal 00-agent like Bond to take Quintus out of the safety of MI6 headquarters in a state like this. 

Head cocked but posture wary, Sherlock reached out a hand as if he were attempting to touch a sea of shattered glass instead of one of Quintus’s hunched shoulders. He touched very lightly and may or may not have braced himself, but nothing spectacular or bad happened. Lips still pressed together and eyes narrowed warily, Sherlock squeezed a bit until he was properly touching his brother’s upper arm.  “Um… Hello, Quintus. Damn, that’s not how you address a sleeping person!  How does one address a sleeping person…?”

While Sherlock had been muttering incriminating things to himself, John had arrived, and now chuckled from the doorway.  He raised his hands harmlessly when his flatmate glared.  “Sorry, sorry.  It’s just funny to see you out of your element with something.  It’s refreshing.”

“Yes, well, my failing in human interactions is hardly conducive to my brother’s health,” Sherlock sniped, angry now – but probably more at himself than John, who was only voicing the truth.  Mouth turned downwards in a thunderous frown, Sherlock looked between his uncertain hand and Quintus, who was still not sleeping soundly.  “John, I demand you take control of this situation.”

“All right, fine, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” John obeyed, but still with the slightest hint of amusement.  He came over to the bed but…stopped before he got within touching distance. Sherlock didn’t like the look in John’s eye – he got that look when he felt he had to teach the detective something. “You’re doing a good job, Sherlock,” he said sincerely.

“Since Quintus is still struggling in his sleep, I would beg to differ.”

“Well, then get a bit closer. Seriously, Sherlock, it’s not as if he’s got an infectious plague,” John chastised humorously, indicating both Holmeses with a sweep of his hand.  “I’ll walk you through it if you’re so nervous about calming your brother down.”

“Why can’t _you_ do this?”

John’s eyes got that disturbingly cunning look.  “What, is the great Sherlock Holmes too embarrassed to sit with his brother for a few minutes?”

Pride would always be a weakness of Sherlock’s.  He’d never admit it – and even now he was deleting the knowledge in his own head – but it was true. Straightening his spine and managing to look down his nose at John even though the smaller man was standing and Sherlock sitting, Sherlock scooted up further onto the bed until he was sitting fully on it, alongside his fidgeting, dozing brother.  “There.  Physical nearness, contact, and no embarrassment.  Happy?”

John chuckled and covered his face for a second as if he had to physically remove some of his mirth before Sherlock saw too much of it – there was still an awfully big grin on John’s face when he looked up again.  It was quite a sight: Sherlock, looking like an offended princess on a throne, sitting with his legs stretched out next to another man who could have been his twin, but was smaller and more finely featured.  Q shifted and rolled over abruptly, still semi-conscious at best, but when he felt the warmth of Sherlock’s hip against his forehead, he curled against it and settled.

“See?” While Sherlock was staring down as if he’d found a snake in his boots, John lowered is voice to a whisper and tried to decide whether he was more touched or bloody amused. “Nothing to it. He’s calming down and going back to a normal sleep already.”

Sherlock still looked more than a little horrified.  He was moving and shifting in tiny increments as if trying to crawl out of himself without actually breaking contact with his brother.  “This is _insane_ ,” he seethed in his low baritone, making clear his dislike for the situation. “Quintus doesn’t even like physical contact when he’s _himself_!”

“Well, he seemed fine with it this morning when Bond brought him by,” John reminded blithely, clearly recalling the intimate way in which the muscular, blond-haired man had pulled Q in close.  In fact, John didn’t even have to be a deductive wizard like Sherlock was to see that every way in which Bond moved with Quintus held some level of familiarity. Sherlock was no doubt right that James Bond was an MI6 assassin, but John was willing to bet that Quintus was in _no_ danger whatsoever from that man. “Plus, he’s unconscious now, and he probably won’t even remember this later.  He’s your brother, Sherlock, and this isn’t really much to ask for.”

Looking down guiltily as John’s logic sank in, Sherlock acquiesced to putting down his hand once against on Q’s shoulder – this time his left one, and with more fraternal gentleness. It was always heartwarming to see Sherlock showing genuine care for someone, and John found something warm unfurling in his chest as he just watched.  “I’ll grab you something to eat, yeah?”

“That would be appreciated, thank you, John,” Sherlock replied in a rare mannerly fashion without turning protective eyes away from Q.

~^~

The hilarity (and awkwardness) increased when Sherlock and John realized just how hard it was to leave Q _alone_.  As Bond had found out (but had perhaps neglected to emphasize enough), even a few minutes without physical contact jarred the nightmares loose in Q’s head, as if the sun were sinking and letting in darkness everywhere. At one point, Mrs. Hudson actually came up and knocked because she heard yelling, and John had to explain some of the situation to her, leaving out the more delicate details like the involvement with MI6.  Mrs. Hudson immediately grew sympathetic, and neglected to recall that she was their landlady and not their housekeeper when she made chicken-noodle soup for 221B. 

For all that Sherlock’s protective, elder-brother instincts had been roused for Q’s sake, he still wasn’t the touchy-feely sort, and having to sit so often with his younger brother was beginning to drive him a special sort of crazy.  At first, John found this amazingly funny, but that was because he didn’t realize that crazy brought out the conniving side in Sherlock.

“John, I’m going to have to take a shower eventually.”

John opened his mouth, closed it again, and visibly changed what he was going to say as he frowned, “Yeah, that’s normally what people do…”  He left the sentence hanging as if he wasn’t sure whether to make it a question, or if there was a catch.

Oh, there was a catch. Sherlock smiled a tiny little smile, readying said catch behind his teeth.  “And when I do-”  He delicately indicated Q, who was huddled against his side like a black-haired scarecrow freshly cut down and brought in from the fields.  Sherlock had _just barely_ gotten used to having someone that close to him, and he still tended to move as if everything were eggshells.  “-Someone will have to stay with him.”

John sputtered, himself just out of the shower and checking in to make sure Q was getting enough fluids and not showing any other symptoms of sickness.  “Sherlock-!” he started, worried by the triumphant light he already saw in the tall man’s alert, blue-green eyes.  “Sherlock, that will only take a few minutes.”

“Yes, but has it not been proven that even a few minutes can send Q into a nightmare? Besides, what if I take a long shower?” Sherlock crossed his arms and argued. 

“Then you use up all the hot water and get a chilly surprise.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically at the other man’s recalcitrance.  “Why must you be so childish sometimes, John? Q needs to sleep, and if I leave him alone, he may not get it – unless you stay here with him in my absence.”

Instead of giving in, John narrowed his eyes warily and accused, “You’re trying to stick me with babysitting duty.”

“John,” Sherlock reproved.

“I’m not falling for your schemes!  You’ve tricked me into more things than I care to count.”

“You say that like I’m being malicious.”

John snorted and grinned a bit wryly as he crossed his arms and replied, “Sometimes you _are_.”

Somewhat taken aback, Sherlock shifted, actually leaning back a bit and blinking. He processed John’s candid words a moment before looking down and placing a hesitant, light hand on the head of his brother, perhaps finding familiarity in the wild dark waves. Q murmured something but remained where he was, head on Sherlock’s lap like a lost puppy.  “John, please…” Sherlock murmured.

And John buckled. Really, the chance to see Sherlock actually acting brotherly and like a human being was worth giving in to his manipulations.  John begged off enough time to get himself dried off and dressed in something fit for lounging, and then watched with mixed fondness and amusement as Sherlock more or less leapt from the bed as if he were escaping a spider’s web. He did it deftly enough that he didn’t jostle the bed’s other occupant, but then he was circling around John and chivvying him forward like a herding dog with a sheep.  “Yes, I know, Sherlock!  I’m moving – no need to shove at me!” John protested, but still ended up almost bodily moved onto the space Sherlock had vacated. Abruptly, John thought about the fact that this was a grown man he was literally sharing a bed with, and he wasn’t even related.  “Sherlock…” he started in his warning voice.

“Oh, stop complaining, John.” Now Sherlock had no problem touching; leaning over the bed, he pushed and nudged at both John and Q, as if trying to get them both comfortable.  Mostly, he seemed intent on putting them in the same space, which was fine by Q but decidedly _not_ fine by John. “You were the one who agreed that the murdering 00-agent was right, and my brother benefits from physical contact at this point in his recovery.”

“Can you maybe call Bond by his name?”

“I prefer not to lose sight of what he is – which is an MI6 lackey with a certain predilection for spying, shooting, and maiming,” Sherlock replied flippantly, untroubled with his own description and swiftly straightening now that John essentially had a lapful of the youngest Holmes brother.  “Well, I’m off to a shower.”

And with that, he spun and fled the room.

Naturally, he took as long a shower as he liked and then took the time to dry off quite lazily. John would have started yelling for him, but with Q sleeping, he wouldn’t dare.  Sherlock heard his phone go off, which had at least an eighty-percent chance of being an angry call from John, but fortunately Sherlock had left his phone in the same room as John.  Released from Q-watching duty, Sherlock shamelessly commandeered John’s room for the night. 

~^~

After twenty-four hours of intense awkwardness (bordering on adorableness) for Sherlock and mostly John, Q finally began to come around – by then, John had fled Sherlock’s room as well, and had threatened to dangle the consulting detective out the window by his toes for leaving him there.  They’d snarled and argued back and forth until a groggy – but upright – Q had wandered into the room, still dressed in his own slacks and the black T-shirt Bond had lent him.  He’d asked what the bloody hell was going on, and whether he could grab a decent shower and fresh clothes.

From there, perhaps to make up for his extended lethargy previously, Q’s recovery was rapid. He was soon eating a remarkable amount of food (choking on said food when Sherlock mercilessly explained how long he’d been asleep), and doing things for himself like a normal human being. Probably more out of personal pride than mercy, neither John nor Sherlock mentioned just how much time they’d spent essentially cuddling Q to keep him safe from nightmares.

With Q up and alert again, his personality also returned.  He regained his equilibrium, realized that there was no point in keeping his status as ‘Q’ secret from John, and settled in accordingly for the last bit of his recovery.  John had declared that he should stay at least another day before returning to MI6, and Q – back to his calm, self-contained self – agreed.

It wasn’t long before John decided that Quintus Holmes was a damn eerie fellow.  He’d seemed so full of emotion when he’d been seeking comfort and crying out in his sleep, but once in control of his faculties again, Q became a void of emotion.  He was a mountain lake that barely rippled.  Sherlock, on the other hand, hated dealing with emotions, but he definitely had them. Q…  Q felt a lot like a computer with rudimentary sympathetic capabilities, all turned down to the lowest, calmest setting so that Q could function more logically. 

John would freely admit that Sherlock and Mycroft were the most infuriating people he’d ever met; he’d hoped that Q would be the ‘normal’ brother.  Sadly, he was mistaken, and soon the ex-army doctor decided that he actually preferred Sherlock’s prideful quirks and Mycroft’s predictable arseholery to Q’s almost mechanical calmness.  Whenever the doctor and Q were stuck in the flat alone (something that happened suspiciously often, with Sherlock making excuses to disappear), John watched the slight, bespectacled figure of Q with a lot of wariness. Sometimes Q would favor him with the polite little smile, but his hazel eyes always stayed cool and untouchable behind his glasses, and then he’d bend back over the laptop Sherlock had procured for him.

“It’s spooky!” John complained after their first twenty-four hours with a coherent, walking-and-talking Q in the house.  Right now, the youngest Holmes was using the shower, leaving John to air his grievances. “I know he’s paying attention to everything – he’s a Holmes, so self-awareness seems to be a terminal condition – but his eyes never leave that computer.  It’s like you’ve got a robot for a brother.”  While Sherlock was still frowning over being diagnosed with a ‘terminal condition,’ John tried and failed to be polite and friendly. “At least until he gives that…that little _smirk_.”

Sherlock startled chuckling, and his manic grin suddenly made John one-hundred percent sure that the detective was perfectly aware of Q and John’s clashing personalities.

“You’ve been leaving us alone together,” John accused.

Immediately, Sherlock began defending himself, going so far as to put his hands on his flatmate’s shoulders in an overdone calming gesture.  “You’re jumping to conclusions, John.”

John barked a sarcastic little laugh, the kind that lacked humor.  “Well, now I’m _sure_ I’m not,” he deduced all on his own by Sherlock’s solicitous temperament.

“It’s scientific research-”

“How in hell is this science? This is your best mate and your brother.”

“Well, Mycroft and I have never understood Q very well,” Sherlock admitted with a wincing face that he only got when he really didn’t like admitting to something.

Sighing, John pushed down some of his irritation, seeing the look of real helplessness on Sherlock’s elegant, angular face.  He really _was_ bad with people – his own family especially. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as we can now see, Sherlock is doomed not to get along with James - and John is doomed to not get along spectacularly well with Q! That won't stop me from dumping them all together again in the next chapter, of course :3 Ready for things to heat up again, everyone?


	8. Predators at Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond's on his way back and trouble is never far from him - in this case, it comes in the form of some very disgruntled slavers who must might have realized that 007 has a weakness sitting at 221B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll finally get to meet Mycroft in this chapter! And see Sherlock express a few more dreaded feeeeelings. 
> 
> Hold onto your seats, because the slow stuff is over...

How did that saying go? Look into the abyss, and it looks back into you?  Bond hadn’t really considered that phrase until now, as it applied to villains: search out and exploit the weaknesses of criminals often enough, and they would try and do the same. Bond wasn’t sure how, but the slavers had caught wind of their enemy’s connections to 221B. Sometimes fate was just a nasty bitch that way, and now the hunter was the hunted.

Things like this happened: no mission went perfectly, and even if the agent never said a word, secrets could get out.  Most likely, someone had taken note of 007’s unexpected disappearance, just when he’d been hot as a hellhound on their heels, and had done some digging into what could call off a man like Bond.  It had been a stupid move to go back to Q like that, but Bond didn’t think he could change his actions even if he were given a thousand chances to go back and try. Q was a strange addiction that he still couldn’t find a way to understand or stop, but now it meant that trouble was going to come roaring down on Q’s head if Bond didn’t get the slavers first. 

Bruised, battered, tired, and barely fit for the modest company of the plane he was sent home on, Bond rushed back to London.  He’d tried calling ahead to MI6, but someone was stopping his calls, and he wasn’t sure who was responsible – no doubt Q was capable of a stunt like that, but he wouldn’t be doing it, and the most plausible choice was the gang of slavers. Where they’d gotten the resources to cut him off from backup like that, he didn’t know, but he’d certainly annoyed them enough to make them try.  Bond hated people who sold other human beings less powerful than themselves, and it didn’t help that bringing down people like these had so ruined the Quartermaster’s health.  Beneath his dry little smiles and unruffled temperament, computer-like in its efficiency, Q cared so fiercely about people that he’d run himself into the ground protecting them.

So now Bond was going to run those slavers into the ground in return, with everything he had, and if they thought they could touch Q… 

He would string them up by their own ribcages, hooked like speared fish, and gut them slowly and painstakingly in just the same way.  They’d swiftly realize that the only thing more dangerous than threatening a 00-agent was threatening possibly the only person he still cared about in this world. Death would be slow in coming for them, because 007 was willing to hold off the Reaper himself for just long enough to quench the protective, illogical _wrath_ raging in his scarred, jaded heart.  No, if these bastards thought they could hurt Q, they had another thing coming.

Although he’d recently been flying solo with no connection with MI6, James had heard enough from R to know that MI6 wasn’t quite going insane over Q’s absence, but it was a near thing. Part of 007 was proud of the chaos he’d caused, but most of him felt a bit guilty and was glad that R seemed good at stringing together stories about how Q was just at home resting. Bond had no idea how R authenticated his stories when even _he_ didn’t know exactly where 007 had squirreled away the Quartermaster, but apparently no one was putting Q’s face on milk cartons.  He’d have to return to MI6 soon though.  Bond suspected that Mallory and the others were giving Q some kind of leeway because they worried that they’d broken Q already by working him so hard, but it would only stretch so far, and the situation right now just went to prove how unsafe the Quartermaster could be outside of the walls of MI6.

The plane landed and Bond ignored the ‘seat-belt on’ sign, exiting the plane the second the door was opened, oblivious to the frightened, silent stares leveled his way. Even if he’d done a good job of hiding the injuries he’d picked up thus far on the job, his exhaustion and tension was visible in the stubble on his jaw and rough, hardened cast to his face. Bond was a predator at heart, but usually he hid it – now, he couldn’t be bothered to try.  He was just barely behind the slavers, and every second he paused to try and look polite to the ignorant populace was one second that they got closer to Q before he brought them down. 

Once again, Bond tried to call Q.  Again, failure. “Damn,” he muttered, discarding the idea of buying another phone because it would take time. Instead, he gave up and picked up his pace, loping through the airport and bypassing the flocks of humanity fishing for their luggage and battling various degrees of jet-lag. He made it out of the building with his eyes already searching out the fastest and most direct route when a car pulled up in front of him.  Blue eyes narrowing, the agent growled low in his throat as his instincts made him focus – even now, at his most reckless and driven, he couldn’t ignore the senses that told him something dangerous was looming.  The right kind of paperwork had allowed him to keep his gun the whole way here, and it took an immense amount of effort not to reach for it now, as a woman stepped out of the car. 

She was texting something on her phone, but looked up for a moment, taking him in and looking a bit concerned – probably because Bond was wearing his ‘serial killer’ face, the kind that said he’d kill his own grandmother at the drop of a hat right now. Metaphorically speaking. “Mr. Bond?  I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to get in the car right now.  Your presence has been requested.”

Irritation spiked under Bond’s skin like porcupine quills.  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” his voice grated out, even as he shifted his weight and took the first step to circle around the car.

“I wouldn’t dismiss this so easily, agent,” a new voice had Bond freezing and turning back, spotting a second figure emerging from the back of the car: a fairly overage face with cunning eyes that 007 immediately recognized.  After all, he’d researched this underestimated man when he’d started hunting into the Quartermaster’s background.  “Let me handle this, Anthea.  00-agents are rarely known for their sensibility, and need careful handling. In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Bond,” Mycroft continued, face pinched and looking as if this distasteful business annoyed him, “you are out of communication with MI6.  That’s the least of what I have the capability of doing, although I’d rather not resort to threats when all I really need is to chat with you.” Mycroft smiled a thin sort of smile. “Like decent human beings.”

“I don’t have time for this,” was 007’s blunt answer.

“You should make time,” Mycroft retorted unflinchingly, “After all, you made time to stick your nose where it didn’t belong.”

“Is this because I researched you?  And your brother?” Bond shot back, ignoring his research of Sherlock, the third brother, for a moment. Technically, 007 had stuck his nose into the whole of the Holmes’ family matters, and even for a family less odd, it would have been seen as intrusive.  Bond grew incredulous even as the break in his momentum gave him time to feel his aches and pains, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”  It was like a sudden horrible joke had decided to make him the punch-line.  “Look, Mycroft, I’m pretty sure I can imagine how I’ve offended that paranoid mind of yours,” Bond began to say back with growing fury.

“Please, Mr. Bond, cut the theatrics,” Mycroft said in a tone that said he was too cultured to scoff, but was very good at intimating such a derisive tone. He was not intimidated by 007 the way most people were.  On the other side of car, however, Anthea had a subtly watchful look to her, as she glance past the screen of her phone and watched the tense lines of Bond’s shoulders.

Bond decided to slice through the pretenses like a white-hot knife searing through a thin barrier of ice. He could physically outmaneuver Q’s eldest brother, he had no doubt, but his nosing around had proven that Mycroft had a million other ways to make life difficult – and something about Anthea had all of his instincts triggered.  The last thing he needed right now was hindrance of any kind, much less from one of Q’s brothers.  “It isn’t theatrics, Mycroft,” Bond snapped just short of yelling, losing all sense of decorum as his last patience crumbled away, “and I’m not back in London to meddle in your business, or state secrets, or whatever the hell you think I’ve gotten into!”

“You’d better not be. It would be a pity if I had to remove a valuable 00-agent from Her Majesty’s service,” came Mycroft’s reply with a surprising level of calm deadliness.  His eyes were as flat and reptilian as a snake’s, and yet as intelligent as Q’s had ever seemed – a xyresic intellect that was capable of scraping the board clean of competition, removing governments and warlords, criminals and spies. Intelligence like that, even 007 had learned wisely to fear, although usually it was on his side when Q was there. Now he was being forced to deal with another faction of the notorious Holmes family, and the altercation couldn’t have come to a head at a worse time.

“You can draw and quarter me on your own time,” the harsh words broke from Bond’s mouth without thought or hesitation – or regret.  He faced death on a regular basis, so putting off whatever ignominious end Mycroft threatened hardly fazed him.  “But right now, if I don’t get to your youngest brother, an international slaving ring with a misplaced grudge is going to try and turn 221B into morgue. _I’m_ not the threat right now!”

The effect was instantaneous. Mycroft could be a posturing bastard, Bond knew from investigation, but he wasn’t an idiot. The mask of disdainful dislike that had rested heavily on Mycroft’s feature cracked and shattered in a fashion that James suspected was rare.  Real shock and fear showed through.  “We’ll take my car,” was all he said, stiff and a bit ragged as he tried to regain his composure.  He moved quite quickly to re-enter the vehicle, and Bond didn’t argue – travelling on Mycroft’s dime was faster than finding a taxi and less complicated than stealing a car.

Anthea slid in last, leaning in deftly just long enough to say to Bond, “An explanation will probably be expected along the way.”  Her tone was polite and almost apologetic, and she was possibly the calmest one there.

Bond merely took his seat, thrumming with dangerous energy like smoke pouring off a fire. “Just get me to Q,” he murmured in a voice full of iron, graveyards, and too little patience to hold back the killer hidden beneath all 00-agents’ skins.  “I’ll sing whatever song Mycroft bloody likes.”

~^~

John was reflecting on the fact that somehow, all of the Holmes brothers were totally different while being exactly the same.  Clearly, all of them were geniuses to the extent that normal human beings were beneath them, but each trusted in knowledge from different sources. Mycroft’s realm was the realm of people – John had first-hand experience with his manipulative ways, and while Sherlock would underhandedly control people from time to time, he didn’t do it like it was natural to him.  Quintus trusted explicitly in the realm of numbers, which was again something that Sherlock dipped a toe into.  Sherlock trusted in the statistical likelihood of people doing something, or heights of suspects, or the precise amount of effort he had to put into shoving a man if said man weighed what he suspected.  Only Q believed in numbers in their purest and most unadulterated sense, however, and it was starting to become clear why he and Sherlock didn’t get along.

“Sherlock, if you must insist on watching over my shoulder, please keep from radiating such contempt,” Q said with a deceptively mild lilt to his tone as he sat at the little kitchen table and typed.  Apparently, he was coding, although John hadn’t asked beyond that for fear of showing too much ignorance.

Sherlock continued to loom, looking down his nose with practiced ease.  He snorted and his mouth gave a sneering little twist that John was used to seeing when Sherlock was about to act like a prat.  “I believe that your 00-agent lapdog dropped you off here with the idea that you’d be away from your work, Quintus,” Sherlock prodded, saying his younger brother’s full name as if he knew it annoyed him (which was probably precisely the case).

Q’s mouth twisted down at the edges at the last word, but otherwise he remained preternaturally calm – all numbers and machinery.  It was a bit unsettling to John, because no matter how weird Sherlock was, it never felt like living with a bespectacled robot.  “He’s not a lapdog, and if he thought that taking me here would remove me from my work, he’s far stupider than I had anticipated.”

“Most everyone is stupid.”

“Hey!” John called warningly from behind the newspaper in the living room.  He was ignored, except for a shift in Sherlock’s weight that indicated he’d heard, if not heeded. 

Q’s hazel eyes lifted from his screen, but only towards Sherlock, as if to see how serious he was about this conversation.  “Most everyone is smart in their own categories.  I rather imagine that James has you outmatched in a few,” he apparently decided to play along.

Unimpressed, Sherlock just snorted and rolled his eyes, still watching Q’s computer screen and seemingly trying to figure out the numbers and letters all over it.  He’d never admit it, but John was pretty sure that Sherlock was utterly flummoxed.  “Bond’s categories all revolve around the application brute force.  I’m ashamed that you misinterpret that for intelligence.” He leaned a bit further over Q’s shoulder to snipe rather nastily, “Are you even my brother?”

“Sometimes, Sherlock, I really wish I wasn’t.”

“What are you doing anyway?”

‘ _Ah_ ,’ John thought to himself, ‘ _The real root of the problem finally comes out.  Sherlock’s curiosity_.’  Sherlock hated nothing more than something he didn’t understand, and while Q was no deductive genius like his older brother, he knew computers far better, and may as well have been teasing Sherlock every since opening up that laptop. 

It was John who noticed something wrong first, however.  He was used to listening to Sherlock with only half an ear, and his war-honed instincts had never really turned off after returning to familiar soil – running around with a consulting detective who was a trouble-magnet had made sure those reflexes never even got a chance to rust.  Sometimes, Sherlock was also wrong: there was a sort of intelligence in physical things, such as the gut reaction that had John tensing and straightening, attention leaving the paper in his hands. He thought he’d heard a rather quick drag of car-brakes on the street just outside. 

With no particular explanation why, John stood up, and therefore he was the one in the line of fire when the door was suddenly kicked open and armed men lunged through.

“ _John_!” Sherlock’s bellow was sudden enough to indicate that John’s movements had given him a split-second warning – he was used to watching his flatmate, and while he hadn’t sensed anything off himself, he’d naturally noticed when the shorter man stood.  Perhaps he didn’t heed John’s words, but he heeded his actions.

The gunmen barely paused a second, taking in the situation – but John paused even less, reacting with a speed born of training and muscle memory.  He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew without having to stop and think that this wasn’t one of those situations fixed by words, even before Sherlock’s yell.  Since no one had expected a battle in the flat today, John’s gun wasn’t in the room, but that hadn’t stopped him before.  The ex-army doctor lunged forward, ducked low to make a small target of himself for the seconds it took to crash into the nearest man with a gun.  This had the benefit of not only knocking that one’s aim askew, but making those behind him think twice about shooting, lest they put a bullet in their flailing comrade. 

Sherlock, not to be outdone, was by now racing forward as well.  He wasn’t a fighter by any stretch, but the most peculiar thing was, with John, he seemed able to ignore that.  Fights that would have previously led to Sherlock getting his arse handed to him nowadays ended in victory, because while Sherlock oftentimes derided physical skills, they came in handy when the consulting detective decided to be reckless.

Right now, though, Sherlock looked less willfully reckless and more like he was desperate – afraid. His eyes had, of course, widened when they’d taken in the intruders, but the middle Holmes brother’s expression had suddenly become electrified when he’d watched Watson leap forward. It was said by many that Sherlock was a genius except when it came to fear, a category that he was most deficient in. Horror now burst up like a brushfire in his eyes when he saw John so near to so many guns, and then Sherlock was moving faster than Q had ever seen him move.

One bullet spat forth, and if Mrs. Hudson were not out, she’d definitely have known something was wrong now, because Sherlock’s occasional penchant for gunfire in the house was never accompanied by bodies hitting the floor.  Right now, John and a bearded brute had given into gravity with heavy, ungainly thuds.  John’s reflexes continued to serve him well as he got a fast punch in before the other could react, and right about then, Sherlock ducked another bullet and decided that ranged weapons were wiser than impulsive charging – he grabbed a lamp. It made a surprisingly good weapon as he struck out with it at anyone who came close.  Things seemed to be going shockingly well until there was another bark of a gun going off, and this time John cried out, pulled back, and rolled heavily into the couch.  Sherlock froze and shouted his name again, eyes wild, and the only reason he avoided a punch was because his long legs carried him swiftly in John’s direction as if he were suddenly made of metal shavings, and John was a magnet. Said magnet was right now clutching the same leg he’d injured in the war, teeth gritted in pain and redness seeping past the hand he’d clamped over the wound.  Sherlock was halfway to him when someone grabbed him, and then Q’s voice rang across the room.

“Jonah Lorandd. That is your name, isn’t it? I admit that I’m surprised to see you come to do this business yourself.”  Q was standing behind his laptop, only the tenseness of his lean frame giving away his trepidation, for his expression was as blank and unreadable as a mask. This was the Quartermaster of MI6 speaking, not Quintus Holmes, and now his calm voice somehow came down like a whip-crack, although he barely raised his volume. 

The directness and accuracy of his words served the purpose of startling the intruders, who let Sherlock go, although all the tall man did was go to John.  He thumped to his knees at the doctor’s side, looking frazzled and frantic but also one-hundred percent focused – all on John. Sherlock’s brain was like a sun burning, shining in all directions by nature, and it was virtually unheard of to truly see him focusing on one thing like this.   One of his hands had found John’s face and neck, checking his pulse, checking that he was alive, even if he was obviously cursing, moving, and panting.  Sherlock shut the rest of the world out.  Q in turn shut Watson and Sherlock out, focusing marble-hard eyes on the five intruders – and what sounded like a sixth at least on the stairway behind, making the floorboards creak as he stood watch.  The man John had punched was bleeding heavily from his nose and looked as though he was still stunned that so much violence could come from such a small and unassuming a man.  A few more were bruised from Sherlock’s lamp, which now lay in a discarded, broken pile on the floor.

“You know my name,” answered a fellow with black hair slicked back, coal-dark eyes narrowing – Jonah Lorandd, presumably.

“Yes. And I imagine that you’re here for me,” Q replied unconcernedly, with an almost polite little nod. “Am I wrong?”

Cunning glinted in Lorandd’s eyes.  “You’re the thing that blond bastard came back to London for?”

Q’s eyes flashed with surprise, but only for a heartbeat, and then he hid it quickly beneath that robotically centered façade.  “ ‘That blond bastard’ is likely going to be very displeased to hear that you’ve nosed into his personal business.  That blond bastard is also going to get quite a firm talking from me about the necessity of keeping secrets better in the future if he wants to keep his job. Now, let them go-” Q’s eyes hardened further, going from blank and unflinching to razor-lined, and he tipped his chin towards John and Sherlock without moving his eyes from Lorandd.  “-And you can conclude your business with me. They mean nothing.”

“Please don’t be offended if I don’t believe you,” Lorandd grinned a slow and poisonous grin, “but that’s just what someone would say if they wanted to distract me from my real targets. I want to attack Bond where it will make him _bleed_.”

“Ah, and once again he’s giving out his real name,” Q drawled, jaded and seemingly unafraid, “Fantastic. Well, if you know that you’re dealing with James Bond, perhaps you’re smart enough to realize that you’re facing MI6 – who has personnel heading here now, by the way.”  Q tapped his laptop as one would a favorite, dependable dog – one that had just run a message to its masters.  “If you want to survive the next hour, you should at least believe me when I introduce myself: I’m the Quartermaster of MI6.” Q stepped out slowly from behind the table, glancing around as gunman shifted sharply in unease. Already his words were making them jumpy.  The bespectacled man tipped his head and added just a bit wryly, “Good hostage material, if you will. I’d suggest you focus purely on me, because I’ll cooperate far more if you show a bit of decency to innocent bystanders.”

John seemed to take offense at the labeling, and pushed past the shock enough to snarl, “ _Bystanders_ my _arse_ , Q-!”  He broke off with a hiss as moving hurt him, and then there was just the sound of Sherlock hushing him and trying to convince him not to thrash around.  It was odd to see the middle Holmes boy as the sensible one, but something about seeing John down with a bullet-wound had torn him to his very soul, and he’d now placed his flatmate’s safety higher than his own or even Q’s. Frightened, surprisingly _young_ eyes glanced up and back at Q, looking perhaps for assurance, and something he saw in his youngest brother’s calm face had him nodding just fractionally.  Q was running the show, and Sherlock would let his little brother lead.

“Are we understanding one another now?” Q asked with understated dryness, still holding his features together with preternatural calmness that came from constantly corralling, babysitting, and rescuing international spies and assassins – and sometimes watching them kill, and die.  “Or shall we wait for MI6 personnel to show up and sort things out?” 

“I’m starting to see why that blond-haired fellow likes you,” Lorandd mused.  Slowly, he lifted his gun, sighting it calmly on the middle of Q’s face. “And I truly think that Bond’s going to _feel_ it when I put a gaping hole through your head.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say that Q and Bond got back together in this chapter? *innocent face* I might have lied... they are both _in_ this chapter, though! 
> 
> Oh, look, a cliffhanger...


	9. Claws Sunk Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quartermasters are wily creatures when cornered; consulting detectives can be unexpectedly territorial in regards to certain people; and 00-agents do _not_ like it when you find their weak-spots...
> 
> Oh, and both Bond and Q had problems with confidentiality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, 'find their weak-spots' is a reference to another of my fics, but this chapter has decidedly less fluff and more violence than that - so be warned!

Someone downright _screamed_ from the stairway, the sound a person would be imagined to make if they were being dragged into Hell, and in the second that Lorandd and his men flinched and looked back, Q dodged aside.  At the same time, just as watchful and ready, the older Holmes gripped John and dragged him around the couch to the scant protection it offered.  Lorandd spun back with a foreign curse and shot, but the bullet he squeezed off was no longer aimed at brain-matter, and took a chunk off the mantle instead.  Q was already scurrying around into the kitchen, out of immediate range again, like John and Sherlock. 

“MI6 sure is prompt,” John gasped out, as the intruders tried to decide whether to go after their targets or protect their flank, and swiftly were forced to choose the latter. 

Sherlock was pulling his belt off, ignoring the rest of the mounting chaos that his youngest brother had had a hand in orchestrating, and instead focusing on making a tourniquet of sorts to stop his flatmate from bleeding more.  “That’s not MI6,” Sherlock grated out, his own breathing fast and his words rough as if he didn’t want to take the effort to say them, “The Queen’s secret service is fast, but not that fast.  Lorandd came here in a hurry, taking no time to refine their research beyond the location of this flat, indicating that they have someone close on their tail already, however.  Three guesses as to whom.”

Another incoherent holler, although still no gunshots – there wasn’t time to get any off, apparently.  Lorandd ordered men down the stairs while he himself turned his attention back to the flat, face grim and eyes a bit wild.  From where he was, Sherlock could see Q working with something in the kitchen, pulling out some of the beakers and experiments Sherlock had been working on and swiftly trying to identify what contents he had to work with.  Sherlock found a feral little smirk stretching across his mouth, although he could see that Lorandd was going to enter the kitchen before Quintus finished. 

“It won’t do you any good, you know.”  Sherlock’s resonant voice had Lorandd’s head spinning their way, inky hair starting to escape whatever means had slicked it back.  Body still shielding John, but reasonably certain that the black-haired criminal was obsessed with shooting Q now to the point that he’d hesitate to waste bullets elsewhere, Sherlock went on glibly, “Even if you kill the Quartermaster of MI6, the agent you have after you won’t stop.  In fact, I imagine that he’ll come after you with more intensity than before, which I don’t envy you.”  Sherlock’s mind was running a mile a minute, one hand still behind him, resting on John’s side and feeling his tight, controlled breaths and growing both braver and more wrathful with each reminder of John’s pain.  He calculated, “To be taking such drastic measures, Agent Bond must really be creating quite a headache for you.  Unless I’m mistaken – and I rarely am – you left behind a sizeable organization just to take a stab in the dark at a supposed weakness of his.  Or has he already dismantled your organization?  Don’t answer; your expression of impotent rage clearly answers for you.  What you’re doing now is the equivalent of a dying man grasping at straws, when the outcome really is, ultimately-”  Sherlock’s eyes, now calm as Q’s had been earlier, distancing himself from the problem because his brain had already taken it, chewed it apart, and swallowed it whole, briefly glanced past Lorandd at Q.  The youngest Holmes was now standing with tense readiness, and nodded as Sherlock had nodded at him.  Voice as low as an avalanche starting, Sherlock finished,  “-Inevitable.”

Gunfire exploded up the stairs, like the cry of a monster locked in a cage too long and belatedly breaking out in righteous fury.  At the same time, Lorandd realized what Sherlock was doing: distracting.  By the time he spun, however, Q had mixed something together into a dirty mixing bowl and now flung the contents at him, his own body carefully held out of the way and his hands covered with industrial gloves that Sherlock always kept in the kitchen.  The mixture actually sizzled in the air, and it struck Lorannd’s outstretched gun-hand and arm with a noise like a fire biting into wood.  Q just had time to swing the fridge-door open and hide behind it as a bullet winged his way, but it was a sloppy, last-ditch effort at shooting, and Lorandd was screaming and dropping the gun a second later, the skin from his elbows down actually _bubbling_. 

Bond himself finally gained the main floor then, and it was a sight to behold. By then, only one man plus Lorandd was remaining to hold him off, and they may as well have put tissue paper before a canon.  Blood spattered on his face and a look like pure, unadulterated _death_ in his eyes, Bond shot the last lackey three times – once in the arm to drop his gun, once in the gut because it was convenient, and then once in the skull after he could finally be bothered to aim.  The body hadn’t even dropped before Bond was stalking further in, and it was John who was smart enough to notice and shout, “Kitchen!”  Blue eyes snapped their way, taking in everything at a glance, before the 00-agent raced forward, and it took only heartbeats more to zero in on Lorandd’s pained cries. 

“You little fucking _shit_!” Lorandd was too enraged and tormented to notice the imminent end that was just seconds from finding him, “I’m going to split you open from your smartass little mouth to your-”

Bond’s bullet ended the tirade as it tore through Lorandd’s jaw broadside, all but removing it in a spray of blood before the second bullet (nearly simultaneously) shattered the structural integrity of his skull.  Lorandd dropped like a stone. 

Relative silence reigned, except for John’s continued, pained panting and the other voices on the floor below that were presumably allies and not enemies left behind by Bond.  Bond dispassionately moved forward to stand over Lorandd, saying down to him without an ounce of human reaction or regret, “I rather like his smartass little mouth.”  He glanced up, finding Q after a moment, and from behind, Sherlock could see some level of tension leave the agent’s broad shoulders.  He said sardonically, “That was awfully genius of you, Q, spouting off everything about MI6.  Between the two of us, you’re the one who’s going to need a lecture on confidentiality.” 

Sighing, his own shoulders noticeably sagging, Q stepped out from behind the bullet-dented refrigerator door.  “I knew that you’d come and tie up any loose ends.  I tried to send a signal to you myself, to make sure you turned up, but I couldn’t reach you.”

“Your bastard of an elder brother decided that the best way to give me the ‘shovel talk’ was to cut me off from outside contact,” Bond growled, holstering his gun and looking about him with more interest.  He could see that he didn’t have any more enemies to kill, and Q was alive and well, so that left room to check on other things. 

“I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t interested in a ‘shovel talk’ so much as investigating a possible hole in his security,” Q mollified him, then arched an eyebrow, “Am I right in assuming that you used some of your spy skills to learn about the _entirety_ of my family?” 

“If you’d warned me that Mycroft was a paranoid control-freak…” Bond growled with a flash of bellicose nature.  Out of reflex, it seemed, he kicked Lorandd’s discarded weapon out of reach, startling a little as he noticed the spots of liquid still bubbling on the floor and the carpet.  He didn’t ask.  “He’s on his way here, by the way.”

“So is MI6.  I recognized Jonah Lorandd here from previous mission surveillance, and had time to send them an alert.”  Q moved forward, back to his laptop, and began typing again.  “I’m also calling an ambulance.  Sherlock, how is John?”

“A poor patient,” snapped Sherlock, pushing his flatmate back down to the floor when he tried to sit up.  “Stay still!”

“Sherlock, I’m not bleeding out!” John tried to impress the idea on him, even as he winced, “The bullet caught the outer side of my thigh, just above my knee, and it went right through – it hurts like hell, but it won’t kill me.”

Sherlock wasn’t to be put off, however, and now that he’d become worried, it was clear that he would mother-hen John until medical personnel pried him away – if that were possible.  It was so rare to see the consulting detective concerned about another human being, but now his long-fingered hands fluttered over John ceaselessly, held off only half-heartedly by John (but mostly tolerated).  While Bond watched them and tried to force some of the killing tension out of his body and Q paced unconcernedly out to his side, Mycroft came into the room behind what was obviously four bodyguards and Anthea.  007 tensed and almost went for his gun again, but light fingers touched his elbow.  “Steady, 007,” Q murmured, his mask starting to look a bit strained now that the danger was removed. 

“Quintus, Bond,” Mycroft nodded loftily, then spotted Sherlock’s head over the couch and grew more concerned, brows lowering. 

Sherlock read the silence perfectly, and barked without leaving John’s side or even looking up, “John took a bullet to the lateral side of his lower thigh.  Since it sounds like you were responsible for delaying Bond and the necessary back-up he provided, I’m holding you responsible.”  Anger made Sherlock’s tone brittle and sharp, the bared fangs of a dog, and even Mycroft looked taken aback.  There was the sound of a newborn grudge in Sherlock’s voice, and no chance for the eldest Holmes to fix it.  If anything, he seemed a bit stunned by the force of Sherlock’s emotional response. 

Hiding that he was flustered, Mycroft took a breath and glanced around the room – where his men were taking command of things, untroubled by the dead bodies but also giving Bond (and Q next to him) wide berth.  “Well then, Quintus, and here I thought a job at MI6 would keep you out of trouble,” Mycroft finally said, just the faintest trace of wryness in his tone, which was vaguely related to a sneer.  He folded both hands over his umbrella slowly.  “I trust that events like this are a rarity?”

“Considering how often you eavesdrop of my life, Mycroft, you ought to know that they are,” Q said back evenly.  He looked odd in common clothing, wearing only a simple white tee with his slacks and bare feet instead of his usual, professional attire.  Somehow, though, he carried himself like a Quartermaster as he idly faced down one brother and pretended not to notice his other brother in emotional pain just meters away.  “To what do I owe this impromptu family visit?”

“You owe your pet agent that,” Mycroft said as if Bond didn’t exist.  007 grunted and shifted his weight, sounding displeased, but there was something about being in a room with all three Holmeses that was not unlike standing in the presence of a not-quite-benevolent higher power – the common folk were at risk of being smote if they spoke out of turn.  Bond sensed the unexpected danger and kept his mouth shut, happy enough just to be in the room with Q, knowing that the smaller man was safe and in visual range.  “He’s been asking quite a variety of questions that he should learn not to.”

“That’s in his nature, you must realize, Mycroft,” Sherlock was the one to scoff, turning from John just long enough to cast his elder brother a much practiced you’re-an-idiot look.  Mycroft grew visibly annoyed. 

“I trust in his discretion,” Q broke in before Sherlock and Mycroft could start sniping at one another in earnest, “Much as Sherlock trusts in John’s.  Besides-”  Q’s face barely shifted, but somehow his eyes became wicked behind his glasses as he finished dryly, “-Anything he could wish to find, I could just as easily _tell_ him.  I’ve never had quite the same opinion on family secrets as you have.”

Today was clearly a day for Mycroft to be outmaneuvered, although it looked like it rarely happened otherwise.  He glared briefly at Bond, glanced a bit uneasily to John and Sherlock mostly out of sight beyond the couch (murmuring to each other just too softly to hear), before finally meeting his youngest brother’s mild gaze.  For a second… Mycroft’s eyes softened, fractionally.  For all that Bond had dug into Q’s history quite thoroughly, he had never found out what had caused the brothers to become so estranged from one another, Q especially.  There was something complicated there, something brotherly, something painful, but it was washed away as effectively as any other sign of weakness ever shown on Mycroft’s face.  It was clear where Q had learned to weave his masks. 

“I’ll do what I always do then, I suppose,” Mycroft said in his jaded, paternal tone, glancing unconcernedly at the corpses on the floor, “Clean up my little brothers’ messes.  I suppose I’ll at least have the help of MI6 this time.”  He glanced up and smiled an oiled smile, adding past his teeth, “It will save me the trouble of calling them myself.”

~^~

Very little more transpired between the Holmes brothers, except a certain level of wary tension that threatened to explode any second – there were clearly many reasons why Q, Sherlock, and Mycroft lived very separate lives and rarely mingled.  Q spoke with Mycroft in overly-professional, terse tones while Bond busied himself by washing blood off himself in the sink.  He always kept the Quartermaster within his range of sight, something that Sherlock was doing with John in a far more clingy fashion – the ambulance was due to arrive any moment, and the ex-army doctor had been moved from the floor to the couch at long last, and Sherlock seemed rather glued to his side.  Bond was actually the one who fetched painkillers, much to Sherlock’s consternation (because even an international spy should not have been able to find where they kept the Paracetamol in a strange flat).  Otherwise, Bond kept apart, and he had a guess that that was somewhat Q’s doing.  Mycroft knew politics and Sherlock read clues, but Q knew two things: technology and 00-agents.  And he seemed to know that _his_ 00-agent was still on a hair-trigger, an injured panther pacing the confines of the kitchen while his slim Quartermaster blocked the way in or out of said kitchen without being obvious about it. 

For his part, Bond tried to resist the urge to come forward and _touch_.  Even after Lorandd’s body had been taken away, 007 kept remembering the sound of his voice, threatening Q, and it made him more terrified than he had words for. 

Mycroft actually saw John and Sherlock off on the ambulance, showing that he perhaps cared – or at least felt slightly guilty that his improperly timed interference had led to Sherlock’s flatmate being shot.  The two older Holmes boys starting snarling at each other in undertones until John (being helped down the stairs just ahead of them by paramedics) had to turn back and yell at them.  The shocking part was that _both_ Holmes listened, and followed more quietly down to the ground floor.

Bond sensed Q turn to him, expression as mild as always, although it had that strained look it sometimes got when the Quartermaster would turn up like a stray cat at his flat.  “Just let me get a coat, and we’ll head back to MI6.  I’m sure that half of the flotilla of cars outside are headed back that way anyway, and would love to give us a lift.” 

“Considering all of the trouble we just caused, I imagine they’d love to toss us over a bridge,” Bond countered, but it took effort to joke, and the effect felt flat on his tongue.  Still, the Quartermaster was kind enough not to comment immediately, and busied himself with pulling on the longcoat he’d arrived in, 007 coming forward to watch his every move.

“ ‘We’?  I’m fairly certain that I had nothing to do with this,” Q had the energy to continue the chatter after a moment, making it feel more natural – more like the world wasn’t poised on a knife-edge, “Just as I’m reasonably certain I never asked to be whisked away to my brother’s place.  Do you have anything to say for yourself?” 

When the Quartermaster turned, buttoning up his coat, Bond had taken up a confrontational position like an old dog falling into bad habits, arms crossed and shoulder leaned up against the mantle.  He knew that his eyes had a mutinously playful glint because it was a look he was good at, no matter how falsified it was.  “What would you like to hear?”

The Quartermaster snorted at the suave tone.  He stepped around a bloodstain that would be nearly impossible to get out of the floor, although between the Holmeses and MI6, someone would probably find out how.  “You’re incorrigible.  I hope you realize that your actions have been reckless, impulsive, and borderline idiotic,” he chided as he headed for the door, glancing back to be sure 007 was following. 

“Hmm – _borderline_ idiotic?” Bond pretended to muse, “That’s promising.   Usually I’m just idiotic.”

“We’ll see what MI6 says to that.  I’m actually rather curious to know how they’ve explained my absence to themselves.”  Q straightened his coat one more time and then strode out of 221B, a muscular, blond-haired figure at his back, as loyal as a shadow. 

~^~

Bond was nasty and cantankerous.  He knew it, and couldn’t be bothered to care.  Medical had a few things to say about his physical condition – he had bruises on bruises, not to mention a whole army of other scrapes and cuts – and Psych had far more to say about his actions when it came out that he’d been responsible for sidelining MI6’s Quartermaster.  No one seemed downright angry about that, though, which proved that everyone was mostly just glad to see Q striding in looking as commanding and self-contained as ever.  In fact, once Q had made it back to Q-branch and changed into some clothes he’d left their sometime back, everyone seemed to release a collective breath of relief. 

“The return of the king,” Bond murmured to himself in jaded amusement, before heading to Mallory’s office for one final tongue-lashing on discreet spy-work and why it was wrong to kidnap ill MI6 personnel. 

It was six hours and an uncountable number of lectures and debriefs later before Bond got to go home – but then he spent another half hour pacing around MI6, fighting with the impulse to go steal down to Q-branch.  He was acting like a short-tempered menace and he knew it, and before long he’d be dodging security sent to throw him out. 

So he left.

But after driving around the city for three more hours and still tasting anxiety and adrenaline coppery on his tongue, he came back.  It was obscenely late by now (or early, depending on one’s point of view), and even MI6 had emptied except for a skeleton crew, most of whom took one look at Bond and let him back in.  He’d washed and changed, but suspected that something of his unsettled mood still bled off him, thick as a cloak, foreboding as a murder of crows. 

He had something on his brain, though, like a fever that he’d had for quite sometime now – since he’d stopped promising himself to get a better security system that could keep out wayward Quartermasters.  “What are you doing, James?” he muttered to himself with heavy foreboding, even as his feet kept moving.  As a spy, it had been child’s-play for him to find out that Q was still in his beloved branch.  R had taken remarkably good care of it, considering the circumstances, but there was no one like Q, and now there was a betting pool for how many _days_ it would be before he left again.  There was always the chance that, when he finally left, the boffin would turn up at Bond’s flat again, but Bond didn’t want to take the chance that he wouldn’t.  This had finally reached the ridiculous stage where clearly…

Bond stopped the sentence in his head.  He had no idea what _this_ clearly _was_ , but if he was willing to defy Medical, MI6, and common-sense in a misguided desire to keep Q safe, then there was something here that he needed to discuss with the Quartermaster.  This was insanity, and clearly it had sunk its claws so deep into him that he could feel it with every breath and couldn’t even imagine tearing loose.  _Q_ had sunk his fingers so deep into him that 007 didn’t now what to do, and he barely even knew when it had happened. 

“If you wanted a simple life,” he said to himself resignedly just as he reached Q’s office, hand poised over the knob, “you shouldn’t have gotten into the spy business.”  With that, 007 let himself into Q’s realm, realizing at the last second that this was the first time he’d imposed on the Quartermaster’s personal space instead of the other way around.

Q’s office was… surprisingly homey.  It had windows that allowed it to look out over the domain of Q-branch, but with practically no one still there, they were all shuttered, and its one occupant had only bothered to turn on a lamp at the back left corner of the room for light – any other brightness was provided by two computer screens, which reflected off Q’s glasses as he looked up sharply.  Surprise flooded his face and his muscles tensed, but then he recognized the agent and relaxed again.  “007,” he greeted, as professional as he always was when they were both at MI6, “I thought that you’d be long gone by now.  Usually you’re blowing off steam in various nightclubs across London by this point, after a mission.”  Although he hid it very, very well, Bond could see the faint glimmers of curiosity as Q tried to figure out why Bond wasn’t doing that now.

“None of that appealed for some reason,” Bond said after a beat, still standing in the doorway.  He wasn’t used to feeling awkward and unsure, so he slipped into character instead: suave and sensual.  He flashed a carnal grin, but his words didn’t follow it – they were low and unreadable instead, “I had to come back here.”

Something flashed in Q’s eyes, but it was hard to tell, with data and computer-windows reflecting like links of chain-mail off his glasses.  “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Bond nodded.  The urge to come further into the room was getting stronger and stronger, as if each second piled up behind him, pushing harder, but he resisted instead. 

Finally taking his hands off his keyboard, Q cocked his head slightly and said almost mildly, “You can come in, you know.  You let me break into your flat often enough, so I’m not going to make you stand on precedence in the neutral ground of my office.”

“Neutral ground, is it?” Bond asked, like a fisherman with a lure in the water.  The look on Q’s face said that he already had the hook and sinker twisted around his fingers, and wasn’t entirely sure why Bond wasn’t pulling the line in yet, but in situations like this, it was hard to tell.  Bond stepped forward and let the door shut behind him, and with a purposeful motion, he locked the door before leaning back against it.  “Do you have any space that’s _yours_ then?”

 Q quirked a smile.  “I have an actual flat, yes.”

“And you don’t go to it because…?”

“How do I know I don’t?”

“I’m one of the best spies in the world, Q.  Even if I didn’t catch you at my flat so often, I’d know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was so fun to have the whole cast together in this chapter!! ^_^ Mycroft is still in everyone's bad-books, sadly, but I think that Sherlock is beginning to realize the usefulness of 'pet' 00-agents. And perhaps the next chapter will actually include Bond and Q talking about _feelings_...?


	10. The Truest Things We Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q is back at MI6 and safe, and Bond's mission is complete. Life goes on, does it not? Well, before it goes on, Bond and Q need to sit down and have a talk about how 007 kidnapped and reneged on a mission all in the name of one particular boffin...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was almost title 'Without Our Masks,' a descriptor that equally fits. Enjoy this last chapter!

Q’s soft smile became a soft laugh, all wrapped up in a Cheshire sort of humor that made Bond’s heartbeat pick up.  It was like fire without the danger, something he didn’t understand but didn’t have to fear.  “I actually own three flats in London.  In the efforts to avoid the constant mothering of our eldest brother, both Sherlock and I have taken different routes.  Sherlock blatantly does ridiculous things and then shouts vicious things when Mycroft lectures him about life-choices.  I’ve made a habit of living in multiple places so that Mycroft invariably has his people watching the wrong house.  Of course, neither of us can really keep Mycroft from being the overbearing mother hen that he is.  Sherlock’s technique failed when Mycroft offered to pay a certain ex-army doctor to be Sherlock’s flatmate and spy on him – my technique failed when I realized that Mycroft had put surveillance on _all_ of my living accommodations.”

“John’s under Mycroft’s thumb?” Bond asked, taken aback.  He’d rather liked the level-headed man, and hadn’t pegged him for the duplicitous sort.

“Mycroft offered, but John declined – Sherlock is lucky to have fallen in with him,” Q put aside Bond’s question with a bit of amused pride just coloring his tone, before standing up from his desk to pace around it.  He straightened his cardigan a little and leaned back against his desk.  “Sherlock leads a charmed life.”

“And what about you?  What have you done about Mycroft’s meddling?” Bond had to ask.  He moved forward a little.  For all that Q called this a neutral space, it felt like Q here, and that bore with it a sense of comfort – from the warm, dark wood of the dependable looking desk, to the somewhat beaten leather chair sitting in front of it, to the honestly ugly maroon-colored futon off against the right wall of the room.

“You _know_ what I did.”  Q raised one eyebrow, letting it disappear under his tousled hair. 

“Breaking into the flat of a 00-agent of my reputation was your plan B?”  As hard as he found that to believe at face value, Bond found himself flattered, and felt a wider smirk stretch his mouth.  His feet were still carrying him forward in a rolling, padding movement that all spies learned in the field – the kind of silent, agile step that cat’s all knew.  His shoes were touching Q’s almost before he’d noticed, and when he reached out to rest his hands speculatively on the Quartermaster’s elbows, he wasn’t rebuffed. 

Q hummed, slim arms crossed over his chest and eyes idly gleaning information off 007’s face.  “I perhaps had a variety of reasons for that choice.  You rarely seemed to use that flat, and were likely to have the best alcohol handy.  The punching bag you keep was a bonus.”

“Were there any other bonuses?”

Suddenly, without any warning at all, Q’s eyes became open and sincere.  “You.” 

It was a shock like a heart stopping.  Bond was used to playing the charmer, the lady’s man, the predator made up of smiles and promises and lies that went down like honey – and he was _good_ at it.  He’d never really stopped to think that Q might be just a little bit good at it, too.  MI6 was a house of falsehoods, but not everyone discarded them at the door, and for someone who never went out to spy in the field, Q had the best pokerface James had ever seen.  He had a mask like carbon-steel, efficient and light and shockingly unshakable, and he wore it so often that Bond had mistaken it for the face beneath.  But it wasn’t.  _This_ was Q, right now, looking at him with an open expression and no ‘Quartermaster’ persona to confuse and throttle them both. 

Bond didn’t know what to say, and could only stand there, still touching Q’s arms, frozen. 

Q didn’t appear surprised, although he seemed slightly chagrined.  He glanced away with a complicated, slightly self-deprecating, upward twitch of his lips.  “Ah.  That’s not how you saw this conversation going then.  Well, in that case, you have my sincerest thanks for rescuing me from Medical’s tender mercies, even if Sherlock is a bloody rotten host- _Mmpff_!”

The Quartermaster’s words were cut off sharply as Bond’s entire self re-started, kicking into motion.  His hands caught Q’s face and drew it back to him so that he could smother him with a hungry, hunting sort of kiss.  He was seeking more, and swiftly got it, because Q had always been quick to find the beat of whatever song 007 felt like dancing to.  They kissed like that until they were both lacking air, and then just a bit more, because Bond liked the lightheaded feeling and loved the way Q grasped greedy breaths against his lips when they finally paused.  “Bloody hell, you’re a challenging little fuck,” Bond ground out between his own deep breaths, his frame shuddering as if he’d just grabbed onto a thunderstorm instead of one fairly small Quartermaster.

Q laughed – a wry but totally delighted little sound.  “Was that a compliment, 007?  Because with all the swearing, it gave off mixed messages.”

“It was a compliment,” Bond assured, struggling to get his head back on straight, and succeeding just enough to stop being dazed and instead slide forward more – making his intent clear even as he ran a heavy hand up the outside of Q’s thigh to his hip, earning a little catch of breath as he added in a low, sensual rumble, “ _This_ is a better one.”  He teased his hand in between Q’s cardigan and the shirt beneath, while his other hand came up to cup the back of the Quartermaster’s head for another kiss, deepening it when Q’s inhale became a gasp.  Bond made it worth his while, mapping his mouth, sucking at his tongue.  Q’s hands found his chest and scrabbled over it, and Bond smiled, relishing this rare moment of the other man losing control, just for a second.  Q found himself a mental and physical handhold in the buttons of Bond’s shirt, hooking fingertips there and simply angling his head to mouth at 007’s lips, breathing his breaths, shuddering as Bond’s other hand grew daring enough to press against him through his trousers. 

When Bond drew back suddenly, the Quartermaster made a noise remarkably like a growl, although it had at least one foot in the territory of a whine, too.  Bond caught his hands and untangled them from his shirt-buttons, but only to grip them solidly in his and draw Q forward, smiling all the while.  “I came in here to remind myself that you were still alive,” he said, a sentence that explained nothing.

Clearly frustrated and un-amused by the playing, Q allowed himself to be drawn forward until he was standing, but still groused in return, “Seeing as I’m cleaning up Q-branch, I can’t see how I could be otherwise.”

“Yes, but I came here to see if you were alive – and well – and-”  Bond was interspersing each word now with a kiss, quick presses of his lips that both startled and mollified Q, because even quick kisses like this were skillful when 007 did them.  It didn’t do much to hide the sincerity of the agent’s words, however, when he so rarely had to be sincere about anything.  “-And because every time I took a moment to stop and think, I was thinking about _you_ , and how I’ve never wanted to kill somebody so much as I wanted to kill Jonah Lorandd after I knew that he was coming for you.”  Another kiss, this one harder, rougher.  It transmitted just an ounce of the fearsome pain Bond felt like a knife in his chest when he thought of the slaver’s threats.  When Bond drew back, it was to rest his head against Q’s and breath deeply, reveling in the smell of copy-paper and steel and probably an unfamiliar smell that was Sherlock’s flat rubbed off on him.  Bond hadn’t realized when his arms had gotten so wrapped around his Quartermaster’s sinewy frame.  “I don’t know what the hell I can offer you, but suddenly I want _everything_.”  He tore the truth out of himself like a heart carved free with a hunter’s knife, an embodiment of the two truest things that he knew: blood and steel.  00-agents weren’t built for confessions, or sincerity, but he had to try and make Q understand before someone threatened the Quartermaster and 007 went berserk over it again.   Bond shook his head and growled low in his throat at the frustration and insanity of it all, but settled again when he felt slim, long-fingered hands on his face and throat. 

Almost tentatively, Q tilted his face, keeping their foreheads together but letting him look up through his lashes at Bond’s watchful eyes.  “I…I wouldn’t say no, you know?” said Q, adding with something more like his usual, dry cheek, “Although I can definitely see this going up in flames.”

“Everything goes up in flames,” Bond rasped right before he lost the ability to hold back, everything unleashed.  Q’s words had sealed up a wound he hadn’t known he’d been carrying.  The Quartermaster yelped a bit as he was spun about and backed up into the nearest wall, although he barely hit it before Bond’s hands were cushioning him, wrapping around his lower spine and sliding up his back, possessive and warm.  Bond was able to leave Q’s mouth alone only for long enough to duck down and tongue at his neck, and then was startled by Q taking advantage of the change in position to suck at his earlobe and then bite at it.  Bond chuckled warmly at the challenge inherent in the actions, and trapped one of Q’s hands up against the wall as he let his other hand drop to the Quartermaster’s trousers.  “God, I missed you,” he groaned, “I considered the possibility that you might go somewhere other than my flat when you got tired of Q-branch, and I nearly went insane.”

“Why would I go anywhere else?”  Q gasped and his head rocked back against the wall with a thud as Bond got his trousers open enough to slip his hand in, feeling Q through his pants.  “You ought to know that you’re the only person I go to when I need to be put out of my head.”

Bond made a thoughtful noise at the reminder of their usual meetings: hard and ravenous, full of too much desperation, adrenalin, and badly hidden pain.  Too many times, Bond realized, he was sharing Q with both of their demons.  “How about where you go when that’s not what you need?” he asked almost softly as he went from biting at Q’s collarbone to lightly mouthing it.

Q twitched in confusion, although he was already quite distracted.  His remaining free hand had slipped between Bond’s button-down and jacket to dig into his ribs hungrily.  “What do you mean?” he managed to ask a bit breathlessly.

Beginning to ease Q’s trousers and pants lower with patient movements, Bond asked into the hollow behind Q’s ear, “When you aren’t exhausted, on edge, and keeping company with bad ghosts and worse memories – do you still want to come to me?”

The smaller man gasped even as a small wriggle on his part succeeded in dropping his lower garments.  It would take a bit more work to toe out of his shoes and lose them entirely.  “Yes,” he panted, then more firmly, more surely, “Yes, James.  I want everything you want to give.  Why else would I bloody break into your flat again and again just to read your books?”

For some reason, that made Bond chuckle, because it was such a nonsensical and _Q_ thing to say.  Suddenly he remembered the Quartermaster, looking fairly normal and only a bit tired from work, crashed on his couch with a Western lying open across his stomach.  Maybe he should have realized then that Q didn’t only come to him when he was exhausted and hurting – just like Bond had recently realized that he wanted Q even when he wasn’t aching for a warm, safe, familiar body to bury himself in.  He was dragged from his thoughts by the movement of Q finally getting out of his shoes, so that he was standing quite naked from the waist down, and suddenly 007 remembered that he had _plans_ for this. 

There was more wordless kissing and awkward necking as Bond backed them up and away from the wall again, Q quite shameless because the door was locked and Q-branch was empty.  Bond’s jacket fell victim to the Quartermaster’s deft hands, and Q also lost his cardigan, right before Bond felt the leather chair at the backs of his knees.  Smirking, he sat back down into it suddenly, pulling a startled Q down on top of him.  It was a spacious chair, and Bond smirked proudly as he saw the room it gave Q to settle with his legs straddling Bond’s. 

“Your move, Q,” he said, grinning like the cat with the canary, shifting his hips because his trousers were too tight by half and Q was too _gorgeous_ by half, kneeling over him with a slightly startled look on his face.  “You break into my flat and ask me to fuck you – now I’m breaking into your office, and _you_ can do whatever you like.”

Even though the room was already rather dark, it was obvious the way Q’s pupils expanded a bit further, and he wet his lips.  “Quite the offer,” he managed to say, before his hands went to work on Bond’s belt and zip in turn, while the two of them kept their mouths busy. 

“Lube, Q,” Bond got out at the next opportunity, already greatly distracted by the warm weight of the other man across his lap.  One of Bond’s treacherous hands had already slid up the lean line of Q’s right thigh, pushing back the hem of the shirt he still had on, exposing his rapidly filling member.  “Unless you don’t see us going there?”  Bond left it open, something that he wouldn’t have done before now, but something had changed – Qs eyes, as they backed off enough to look back at the 00-agent, had softened a bit, too, beneath the physical attraction.  Probably around the time when Bond had answered R’s call to pick up an exhausted and ailing Quartermaster, and had rearranged an entire mission just to protect him from being alone with his nightmares, something other than carnal desires had slipped into their relationship.  Now, beneath the enticing smile and the way his hand was brushing teasingly close to Q’s length, Bond’s eyes said that he wanted more than to just be rough and demanding right now. 

Q considered him a moment, lids falling and hips rocking unconsciously as Bond’s hand encircled him, although the lack of real lubrication soon made Bond’s point for him.  Making a little irked noise not unlike the growl of a housecat, the Quartermaster leaned forward, gave 007 a biting sort of kiss that had the agent moaning, and then slipped away with obvious haste.  Bond ogled him unrepentantly, (because the button-down shirt hid precious little really) and also took the opportunity to loosen his tie and undress a bit himself.  By the time Q had fished around in his desk and come out with what he wanted, the agent was lounging in his seat, gloriously naked from the waist up, trousers undone courtesy of Q.  The Quartermaster flashed an almost startled smile, before his eyes turned appreciative in turn.  “Well, James, if I were a more vain man, I think I’d be envious,” he commented dryly from the side of his desk. 

“It’s all at your disposal,” Bond unabashedly replied, rolling a hand to beckon Q closer again.  Pleasantly, the Quartermaster complied, and soon he was slinging a leg over Bond’s hips again.  There was the odd feeling of having never done this before – never investigated one another, never stared and smiled and worshiped, but at the same time everything was familiar.  There was no embarrassment.  It was an odd mix like glossy oil and water, ice and fire, and it was suddenly the most erotic thing that Bond could think of.

All thanks to emotions he’d been startled to have, and a Quartermaster whom everyone else probably thought was part robot. 

That ‘part-robot’ was now letting Bond take the lubricant from him, as flexible as always to changes in plans, especially when he already knew how skillful 007 could be with his hands. 

Bond was glad that he’d taken that knot of confusing, dangerous emotions in his chest and pulled them loose from their tangle, casting them like a net of stars, letting them wrap around Q.  Everything felt lighter, easier, and so blessedly natural that it was like having a noose taken off his neck, letting him breathe.  He used that breath to play with the skin of Q’s neck, licking a stripe along one tendon and exhaling over it while he slicked up one hand to slide it around behind Q.  It was a testament to the utter focus the Quartermaster had at his disposal that this dual assault on his senses didn’t sidetrack him enough to stop him from getting Bond out of his pants, returning the favors he had received thus far.  Bond smothered his groan against Q’s collarbone, then felt a fierce surge of pride and happiness as he wrung a similar, slightly higher pitched noise from his Quartermaster, pressing a finger into him and pumping gently.  In their past liaisons, Bond had been rough with Q upon the Quartermaster’s own orders, but now he relished the idea of pleasure without pain for either of them.

God knew it happened rarely enough. 

By the time Q was ready and sank down onto Bond’s cock, both of them were already nearly out of their heads.  The moan dragged up 007’s throat was accompanied by shudders through his entire body, and he gripped Q’s thighs hard enough that he could feel himself leaving marks.  “I should warn you, Q,” Bond panted, shaking his head, “I may not last very long.” 

With his own head buried between Bond’s neck and his shoulder, hands gripping either bicep in a grip nearly fit to rival the 00-agent’s, Q let out a shaky bubble of a chuckle.  “I may not either, 007.”  The formal sound of his name made Bond growl playfully, and roll his hips, which elicited a delicious whine from the Quartermaster that cut off his words entirely.  “Bastard,” Q named him next.

“You don’t sound like you mind,” was Bond’s reply, with as suave a tone as he could get with his voice so husky and low, the edged roughened, “Are you going to get payback?”

“Oh, I’m going to pay you back _with_ _interest_ ,” the Quartermaster promised even as he started to move, unable to bite back another groan as his retribution tactics cut both ways.  Bond shifted his grip, helping Q arch up and slide down, his own strength allowing him to push up also, although neither of them knew who it was who changed the angle to suddenly make it _perfect_. 

Bond groaned, muscles coiling, and above him Q let out a wordless breath as his head lolled back.  Before Bond could make some sort of comment, the Quartermaster rolled his hips as if experimenting on the new angle, lighting up Bond from the inside out until he was sure his sight would white out.  “Q…!” he startled himself with the name, but didn’t try and stop himself from saying it over and over as the Quartermaster found a rhythm that both of them coincidentally liked, “Q, Q, Q…”

“That’s not my name, you know.”

Eyes closed and head back against the chair, Bond chuckled, “How can you still sound… so professional?”  Opening his eyes to wicked blue slits, the agent arched up particularly hard, knowing now that he was striking his cock against Q’s inside walls, right where the smaller man would love it most.  “Do you want me to call you Quintus instead, Quartermaster?”

The whining that kept Q from answering was somewhat less professional, as was the way he shifted his bare legs against bond’s clad thighs.  His own cock, untouched, was standing to attention and beaded with pre-cum, and he moved with more desperation.  “Q…” he gasped out, bracing a hand on either of Bond’s pectorals, dexterous hands that could tear through layers of top-grade security systems in seconds, “...will serve just fine, 007.”

“I’ll call you Q if you’ll call me James.”

“You’re a prat even when you’re… _god_!...”  Q gave up talking for a second as Bond wrapped his hand around his neglected cock.  It was a rough stroke barely softened by pre-cum, but it robbed the dark-haired young man of words.  Bond spent the time marveling at the fact that he’d just been called a god, and promised himself to remind Q of that… later.   Q panted, “Fuck, you’re good at that.” 

“I’m good at _fucking_ , too,” the agent reminded with smug delight, pistoning his hips upwards and trying not to come on the spot when Q clenched around him, making the drag tight, slow, and sweet.  Wanting to make this at least a fraction as good for Q as Q was making it for him, Bond felt around until he found the lube, releasing just enough onto his palm to coat Q’s erect cock with, spreading it with a twist of his wrist and a practiced squeeze.  The smaller man’s moan was sign enough that he was doing it right.  “God, Q, you’re perfect…so perfect,” he mumbled mindlessly as both of them began to speed up, heading towards a peak so high they couldn’t see the end of it.  Q’s fingernails were digging into his chest, and Bond was using one hand to guide Q’s ride while the other paid attention to his erection, pumping it in rhythm with the smaller man’s rises and falls. 

When Bond did come, it was with Q clenching around him, crying out and folding over into him, grabbing at the larger man as if needing something to hold onto.  Bond echoed the sentiment, the climax hitting him like a storm crashing through him in one vast wave, and he wrapped one arm instinctively around Q’s back when the smaller man folded into him.  Q shook and shuddered like he’d plugged himself into an electrical socket, murmuring almost frantically, “James…James James James…!”  The sound of it was ambrosia, and Bond hips stuttered a few more times, over-stimulated but still shocking him with pleasure like he couldn’t remember.  He gentled Q through the last of his release, feeling cum on his chest and probably sticking to the button-down Q had retained.  

They sat like that for one long minute, and then two, and then longer.  Bond didn’t want to let go, and Q would have seemed asleep if he weren’t still shuddering periodically with aftershocks.  Bond’s cock was still nestled in him, and each flutter of muscles made him bite back a groan at the sweet torture of it, but he didn’t want it to stop.  He lifted both hands to wrap around Q, not caring how messy it would make them at this point.  Slowly, possessively, and caringly, he stroked up and down the eggshell curve of the Quartermaster’s spine.  He relished the feel of Q’s fingertips dimpling the skin over his pectorals with every easy flex.

Eventually, in a motion that felt natural and in no way hasty, Q got up.  If Bond weren’t so tired out himself, he would have been proud of the way the Quartermaster staggered a little, wrecked-looking and clearly wobbly in the legs.  “Let me clean us up, okay, Q?” Bond offered without hesitation, all of him flushed and warm and as contented as he could remember feeling.  For once, Q’s verbal sparring took a back seat to his opportunistic nature, and he just nodded, backing up until he could more or less collapse with a happy little noise on the futon.  Then he shifted a little with a groan, trying to get comfortable with the idea of sitting on his arse after having it filled up with Bond a second ago.  Chances were, they’d be cleaning up a lot of Q’s office at this rate. 

Q had tissues, and those served as a quick and easy way of cleaning.  Bond was attentive in a way he hadn’t often been back at the flat, padding over quietly to Q, just staring for a long moment at the way he’d decided ultimately to sprawl out on the futon – more laying down than sitting, one leg bent on the cushions and the other dropped to the floor.  “Don’t get any ideas,” Q had the presence of mind to warn drowsily but succinctly, eyes barely opening a slit before closing again, content to have 007 loom over him.  With his head on the arm of the futon, Q looked natural and yet almost exotic, probably because he slept here all the time, but rarely half-naked with his shirt suspiciously rumpled and stained and finger-shaped marks on his hips and thighs. 

Sitting down on the remaining space by Q’s foot and knee, Bond began to clean him gently, making it clear that he wasn’t interested in starting round two anytime soon.  “Ideas?” he played along, voice rolling and playful but ultimately harmless, “What kind of ideas would I be getting?  You only look decadent, debauched, and about as perfect as anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Your gift for understatement is really rather nice.”

“And your snark seems to be the first thing to reboot after sex,” Bond couldn’t help but retort, smile growing.  He leaned in instinctively to kiss the inside of Q’s knee, an appreciative press of his lips that had those hazel eyes opening a tiny bit again.  “I’ll have to do better next time.  Maybe if I do it right, you’ll forget how to talk entirely.”

Q snorted, but there was something suspiciously like a smile lurking around the vicinity of his mouth.  “I hardly think that would be productive.  I need to talk to do my job.”

“Ah.  Touché.  Maybe if I tricked you into taking a vacation, kept you in bed for a few days straight…”  He let the sentence hang, tossing the dirtied tissues into the trash but not moving away – instead the blond-haired agent lingered to stroke Q’s leg, leisurely and slowly.  Q shivered just a bit under his touch, perhaps from chill now that he wasn’t pressed up against 007’s pervasive body-heat. 

Rather maddeningly, the Quartermaster appeared to have fallen asleep.  Part of 007 suspected that it was a ruse, an attempt to avoid replying, but he didn’t hold it against the smaller man – after all, Bond would have loved to just shut down and enjoy the pleasant humming of his body, too, but just like that first post-coital time with Q, he couldn’t stop thinking.  The difference was, instead of being frustrated, resigned, and a bit horrified at himself, 007 was almost excited now, and…happy. 

He realized that he hadn’t been happy in a long time.  At least not since M had died.  Q could take as long as he wanted to answer 007’s invitation – it would be worth it. 

Sure now that the Quartermaster really _was_ asleep and not just foxing him, Bond put his best 00-agent skills to use.  It stood to reason that if Q had a futon here for crashing occasionally, he had a blanket of sorts, and, sure enough, 007 found one folded away on the floor under it.  Double-checking the lock on the door, Bond took stock of the room, making up his mind.  It didn’t take him long, of course, to decide that what he wanted to do was walk over and flick off the one lamp, casting everything into almost-complete darkness.  Only the blinking standby lights of Q’s computers remained, and the Quartermaster shifted as if part of him noticed the change.  As 007’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he for a moment forgot to even breathe as he just looked at the man he’d left on the couch, still spread out and obviously done-in in the best way.  The faint light picked out the tousled darkness of his hair, the glasses he’d actually forgotten to take off, and the pale angles of his loose hands and long legs.  Bond stepped over and relieved him of his spectacles with deft fingers.  Clever eyes opened. 

“Stepping out, 007?” Q asked, voice curious but not offended.  Sleep barely softened his consonants, but deepened his vowels. 

Steady blue eyes looked back at hazel ones that were known to be nearsighted, but looked so keen, even in the dark.  Slowly, Bond shook out the blanket over Q, although then he stooped to remove all of his own clothing save his pants – his trousers showed signs of their recent play, and this was more comfortable anyway.  “Budge over,” he rumbled, and felt something triumphant and delighted expand inside of his chest when Q unhesitantly pushed up and sat forward, clearing space for the larger 00-agent to slip in behind him.  “Do you want to sleep in this?” he asked, his voice reflecting the arched eyebrow once they were settling down against one another and his hand reached over to pluck at Q’s soiled shirt. 

“I’d really rather not,” was the dry answer.  When Q started to undo the buttons, Bond stopped him, insisting on taking over, and for all that he could be a domineering fellow himself, the Quartermaster let him.  Clearly wrung-out and tired, Q sagged back against the agent, his back to James’s chest, cradled between his legs and nestled in his warmth.  Soon he wriggled out of the last of his clothing and twisted, molding himself more comfortably into his partner, who settled the blanket over them both.  Minimally dressed, tired from a day of hectic debriefs and chaos before that, both men sighed and settled down, wordlessly knowing that neither would pursue sex again until at least the morning. 

Bond still stroked his hand down Q’s body, from his nape down his back and all the way to the upper back of his thigh, and then a slow return journey again.  His eyes were still bright and alert in the darkness.

“I’m really all right, you know,” Q said a moment later.  He hadn’t complained about the caress, and now turned his head to kiss the hollow between Bond’s collarbones.  “Lorandd thought he had you cornered, finding me, but I knew something he didn’t.”

“And what was that?” Bond asked, pulling Q’s closer against him at the memory. 

“That a 00-agent like yourself has very few weaknesses.  Almost none.  But when people find those weaknesses…”  Q lifted himself up until he was looking into Bond’s eyes, steady, calm, and as sure as honed steel.  This was what made him more than just a brilliant hacker and tech-analyst, into a Quartermaster instead.  Bond looked into that surety and saw the very ground he stood upon, an unshakable earth.  Q finished, “When people find those weaknesses, they haven’t found a way to win – they’ve found their very own, personal hell to walk right into.  I’ve seen you fight for your friends, 007.”

Q meant M.  Bond felt his chest seize, and he pulled Q closer.   Their foreheads touched, and Bond shifted to nuzzle with rare but true affection at Q’s cheek.  “Thank you, Q.”

“Whatever for?” the Quartermaster feigned lightness very well.  One of his thumbs was stroking the curve of Bond’s shoulder.  “You’re the one who saved my life, not the other way around.”

Bond caught his mouth in a chaste kiss, a soft slide and press of lips that nonetheless conveyed his meaning.  “For everything.  Now stop chatting so much.  I’ve spent what feels like eternity wanting to just sleep with you, and now I’ve got at least a few hours before someone tries looking for either of us.”

“Hmm.  I think I can sleep until at least six.”

“Eight.”

“Six-thirty.  Q-branch is in shambles, and as enticing as you are, I have a job to do.  Will you be at your flat tomorrow night?”

Bond rumbled out a happy, deep sound that would have echoed right through Q’s chest, as the smaller man snuggled into him and relaxed.  “Anything for you, Q,” he promised as he settled one hand over Q’s trim waist and another looped over his upper back, his body making a promise to always be there even if work and chance would no doubt drag them apart over and over and again, for indeterminable lengths of time.  Considering that Bond had a rather baffling habit of always coming back like a strangely lethal homing pigeon, and Q repeatedly turned up like a stray cat at his doorstep, he didn’t see that being a problem.  They’d find each other eventually.  Bond went to sleep feeling Q’s soft, reverent kisses against his skin, quiet signs of affection from a strange and bewildering man whom he had, at some point, adopted as an important part of his life.  For a man who usually cared about missions, drinking, and loyalty to the Crown, it was a terrifying thought, but like Q had said: sometimes weaknesses weren’t bad things, but instead sources of strength. If nothing else, Q could handle himself, so perhaps calling him a ‘weakness’ was hasty.  Bond would have to ask what Q had mixed up to make Lorandd’s hands burn like that… 

It was a testament to the wisdom of MI6 in general, and Q-branch in particular, that no one asked why Q didn’t come out of his office until at least seven the next morning, and then only after a certain amount of noise was heard.  Q eventually answered the summons, looking as put-together as ever except maybe for a bit of extra color to his face, and answered the phone-call from a nearby hospital – apparently there was someone named Sherlock Holmes causing a ruckus, and someone named John Watson was well enough to give the Quartermaster of MI6 a call.  No one but 007 knew what the connection was, or why Q was able to calm down the problem. 

Bond wasn’t seen for hours after that, of course, but rumor had it that a rather smug 00-agent was lounging in the Quartermaster’s office, acting as a lazily grinning guard-dog that no one dared evict.  He eventually left, though, and everything returned to normal: Q-branch ran missions and prepared tech for agents, MI6 kept sending out agents far and wide, Bond kept evading death. 

And Q kept turning up at his flat, as unexpectedly and unapologetically as he ever had.  The difference was, now he had a key, left for him in his desk-drawer before Bond had left on his next mission. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put that last bit of smut in there in case any of you were running low ;) Well, it's been a fun ride for everyone, I hope! I can hardly believe that this is one of my 'shorter' fics... This means I now have more free time to write another fic, doesn't it? *innocent face of an author who really should focus on her upcoming final exams and graduation*

**Author's Note:**

> Want to now what else I'm up to? Or what might be posted in the near future? Go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/10MTLsoV0hKOS6EhS54IknjolsB7Vb0PXiLzT5TfLJ0I/edit - it's a google document where I post snippets of plotbunnies, and also have a tentative posting schedule mapped out!


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